America; A Catholic Review of the Week 1909-10-09: Vol 1 Iss 26

AME

A-CATHOLIC-REVIEW-OF-THE-WEEK

RICA

Vol. L. (Price 10 Cents) OCTOBER 9, 1909 (Page 685) No. 26
CONTENTS
NICLE LITERATURE OBITUARY

Redden Taft—A_ Conflict of Rights—Home The Autobiography of a Neurasthene—De An- Mother Mary of the Cross—Hon. John J. Cur-
Review—Mexico—Costa Rica—Uruguay—T he natis Hibernie—The French Revolution—Ger- TOM ccvcccccccccccccccccseccccsoceseccoess 708
Policy of Appeasement in France—England— man Catholic Press—Homilies for the Whole
Pope and King—lIrish Notes—German Parties— Year—The American Jewish Year-Book—Hia- | SOCIOLOGY
Hungary’s Cabinet—India—Acts of the Holy watha’s Black Robe—Historia de la Pasion de Mission for the Protection of Immigrant Girls—
See—Protestant Church Union—Belgian Teach- (ere lanen to the Month—Reviews and Caring for Children in Germany............ 708
GE8” COMBTONS .cccrcccsccocccccocccvccs 685-688 BBAZINES 2... ccccccccsccccccscccccces 708-705

ECONOMICS

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY EDUCATION
The Comet and the Slander—America and the

Geographers Before Our Era—Priestly Voca-
tions—Reforming Legal Procedure—Political
Crisis in Austria—Catholic Pamphlet Literature
—What Did Pope St. Nicholas Say?—Events of
Interest in Belgium—The Third “ Kateche-

Faul on Catholic

in St. Louis’

Changes at the Catholic University—Bishop Mc-
ic Generosity—Scholastic
losophy in Belfast University—Parochial Schools
CRON 0s v0.0 cscs ccadeses 706

ECCLESIASTICAL NEWS |
International House of Studies for the Redemp-

Certifying Railroad Securities—Value of the
Corn Crop—Health
licity

PULPIT, PRESS AND PLATFORM
The World We Live In—Archbishop O’Connell
on Philanthropic Proselytizing—The N. Y. Public

Phi-

CRORE HOHE HEHE EEE EEE EEE EEE

tische Kars © i Mustek ..-+.-0secseee. oe ; F i Anniversary Missionaries Service Commission—Ireland’s Present Danger
torists — Franciscan Anniver “= : ssion— 1's oe
ag gy te French Loyalty—An for the Congo—The Pope. Visits the .vanene The Confederacy and the Irish.......... 709-710
English Catholic Congress Proposed—Austria’s wee | cer ag go adh oe ag PERSONAL
Catholic Congress Postponed—The Third Gen-| £0Ce—\ Inceniians ra Admiral Semmes—Dr. J. B. Murphy—Arch-
eral Sodalists’ Day at Vienna 696-699 ished Cathedral—Chinese Sunday School in bist Orc il_-Bish é ‘ ri
ee ee es eS Boston—Storm Damage in Louisiana........ 707 mney SRG EEROP POLES 0 oo sss ee0e 10
Dr. Butler’s Evasion—Playing with Fire—Col- | SCIENCE aed. ‘ CORRESPONDENTS’ QUERIES........... 710
lege Ideals—Barcelona Again—One Contract, Halley’s Comet—An Edition of Leonard Euler’s
er MINI 5 6.6:6.6066660 0580066606008 700-702 Works—School for Aviation............ 707-708 | WHAT IS SAID OF AMERICA............ 710
y
CHRONICLE A Conflict of Rights.—Mr. Stegall, a gauger in the

President Taft.—The people of the West, who were
keenly interested in the President’s stand in the conser-
vation of national resources ever since the opening of the
Ballinger-Pinchot trouble, received a clear statement of
his attitude in the course of his speech at Spokane. He
said he would follow the Roosevelt policy as far as
the law permitted and that he would request Congress to
authorize Secretary Ballinger to issue $10,000,000 bonds
for the completion of irrigation work. He praised the
work of Mr. Ballinger and Mr. Pinchot, and defended
the recent action of the former in the reopening of lands,
saying that it was necessary to comply with the law and
was to be only a temporary measure. In his Seattle speech
the President declared himself strongly in favor of an
American ship subsidy and promised to urge its creation
in his forthcoming message to Congress. He opposed
erecting a regular territorial form of government in
Alaska at present because he does not think the territory
has a population sufficiently stable and permanent “to
warrant the delegation to a locally elected legislature of
such authority ” as is given to the legislature and execu-
tive of a regularly organized territory. He suggested
the establishment in Washington of an Alaskan bureau
which would look to the interests of the territory and
act in conjunction with the Governor of Alaska. When
Mr. Taft reached Tacoma he had completed 5,000 miles
of his 13,000-mile trip. He rested at Portland, his next
stopping place, for two days. Whilst here he addressed
the pupils of St. Mary’s Catholic school.

service of the internal revenue department, was sent to
jail last week for contempt because he refused to tell
in a Georgia State Court what he knew of an alleged illicit
distillery in Dade County. The Federal Government ob-
tained a writ of habeas corpus for Stegall’s release, which
the State judge ordered the prison officials to ignore. It
needed a threat of the United States Government to send
a troop of cavalry for the forcible release of the impris-
one¢ gauger before the State judge relented. Mr. Stegall
claimed that, as a Federal officer, he was not obliged to
furnish official information in a State court.

Home Review.—The bank guaranty law of Oklahoma
has been subjected to a severe test by the failure of the
Columbia, the biggest bank in the State. This is the
second failure since the guaranty law was enacted. The
Columbia company was the reserve for 150 other State
banks and had on deposit $1,300,000 of their deposits.
Failure in the application of the guaranty law would mean
financial panic. The State bankers are protesting the
payment of the emergency two per cent. assessment on
capital stock for the purpose of swelling the bank guar-
anty fund sufficiently to take care of the failure of the
Columbia. Major General Frederick D. Grant
marched in uniform at the head of a Prohibition parade in
Chicago. A protest was lodged immediately with Secre-
tary Dickinson, asking whether the Federal Government
had taken sides with the Prohibition movement. The
Secretary denied any thought on the part of the Govern-
ment of taking sides in any such movement, and declared

686

AMERICA

Ocroser 9, 1909. No. 26.

that General Grant participated in the parade as an indi-
vidual and not in any way as representative of the army
or the War Department, and that there was no rule of the
military service prohibiting him from wearing his uni-
form of rank on such an occasion. The Mauretania
has reduced its previous record time for transatlantic
travel by forty-four minutes. On September 30 it arrived
in New York from Liverpool and Queenstown, having
completed the run of 2,784 knots in 4 days, 10 hours and
51 minutes, at an average speed of 26.06 knots an hour.
——The military parade in New York on Thursday dur-
ing the Hudson-Fulton celebration, contained 25,000 men
in arms. For the first time since the evacuation during
the Revolution a considerable body of British troops
under arms appeared on the streets of the city. A let-
ter written by Professor A. von Strumpell, the Austrian
specialist, who treated the late Mr. Harriman in Vienna,
and recently published, discloses the result of his diag-
nosis. According to the professor the railroad magnate
suffered from two maladies ; one, a peculiar form of spinal
disease known as chronic spondylitis ; the other, carcinoma
of the stomach. The National German-American Alli-
ance opened its triennial convention last Saturday in Cin-
cinnati. It represents a membership of 2,500,000, and its
main purposes are to fight prohibition and to procure the
teaching of German in public schools. Sixty mayors
and special commissioners in Illinois have asked Governor
Deneen to request the coming special session of the legis-
lature to pass an enabling act for the commission form
of government for cities———The race tracks revenue tax
in the State of New York for the last year showed a

2,277, owing to the anti-betting law.

decrease of $182,277,
The increase in terms of value of merchandise imported
at New York during last month over the corresponding
month in 1908 was $12,000,000. This increase has been
taken as a sign of returning prosperity. In a Baptist
convention held on September 30 at Grand Rapids, Michi-
gan, the discussions brought out the fact that the dele-
gates were hopelessly divided on the issue of liberalism.
Those attending the meetings of the convention repre-
sented the Baptists of thirty cities and villages in western
Michigan. Mrs. Augusta E. Stetson, of New York,
after Mrs, Eddy the most prominent teacher of Christian
Science, has been stripped of all authority by the direc-
tors of the “ Mother Church” in Boston. The latter os-
tensibly acted on Mrs. Eddy’s orders. Among other
charges found against her were those of insubordination
and departure from the true teaching of Christian Science.

Mexico.—After a noisy newspaper war, General Ber-
nardo Reyes has announced his withdrawal from the
race for the vice-presidential nomination and has resigned
as Governor of Nuevo Leén. General Jerénimo Trevifio
succeeds him as head of the State. As President Diaz,
though an octogenarian, is sure of re-election, it is be-
lieved that the vice-president to be elected in 1910 for
a term of six years will become President by the death

in office of the aged revolutionist. It is intimated that
General Reyes, who has been coquetting with the vice-
presidential nomination much more than was pleasing to
the President, may find it extremely advisable to with-
draw from Mexico. He was vice-president Corral’s rival
in the election of 1904.

Costa Rica.—The recent presidential election has con-
tinued the rule of the Liberal party, already in power,
by securing for its candidate, Ricardo Jiménez, about 87
per cent. of the popular vote. The president-elect has
ample time to prepare for his high office since the inau-
guration will take place May 8, 1910.

Uruguay.—The Catholic Women’s League has met
with marked success in raising the moral tone of the
theatrical exhibitions in the capital. Without attempting
anything like a semi-official censorship, the members, by
publicly criticizing and condemning certain plays, have
made them unpopular and have caused their withdrawal.

The Policy of Appeasement in France.—Mr. Miller-
and, Minister of Public Works in the Briand cabinet,
speaking at Olette (Pyrénées-Orientales) outlined rather
vaguely but in peremptory language the policy of the
new cabinet in these words: ‘“ We wish for appease-
ment and moderation (Nous voulons Il’apaisement et la
détente). We do not wish the democracy to waste its
energy in mean and low squabbles. We do not intend that
politics should become a battle-ground for wretched local
hatred ; we desire to bring about union among all republi-
cans, | may even say among all Frenchmen, in order to
national prosperity. By doing so we are certain of render-
ing good service to the Republic.” Le Temps, while pay-
ing due homage to the nobility of this program, which is
the first official intimation of the new cabinet to the Pre-
fects of Departments as to the policy they should follow,
is somewhat sceptical about its realization, for it observes
that the revolutionary Socialists, the grafters and the
anti-patriotic factions abate not one jot of their hatred,
whose objective is the nation itself. ‘ While our miinis-
ters,” says the great French Protestant organ, “ preach
appeasement and moderation, see what those good apostles
are doing. Hardly a day passes in which they do not
commit some act, or at least some provocation assailing
the safety of the Republic. And they do so with a se-
renity which would lead us to believe that for them
‘apaisement et détente ’ are merely synonyms of impunity,
When will the government make up its mind to teach
them that they are mistaken?”

England.—There is a feeling that a general election is
at hand upon the issue of which may depend the very
existence of the House of Peers. Two or three noble-
men have injured their cause by discontinuing or refusing
petty subscriptions to charities or public objects on the
ground that the additional burdens the Budget threatens

No. 26.

Ocroser 9, 1909.

AMERICA

687

make retrenchment necessary. In more than one case the
subscriptions were made up by penny or shilling con-
tributions from the supporters of the Budget. The
Marquis of Tullibardine invited a competent committee
to inspect the Athol deer forest and to report upon its
availability for agriculture. It reported that the forest
was unsuited to any such use. Lord Hindlip’s assertion
that his Worcestershire estate brings him no profit having
been questioned, he submitted its books to expert ac-
countants who acknowledged that his expenditure on it
even exceeded its income. In his address at the Jubi-
lee of the Catholic Truth Society, the Archbishop of
Westminster reviewed the action of the Government re-
garding Catholic schools, recalling how in each of its
Education Bills it had set itself to violate Catholic rights.
In view of the general election probably approaching, he
would wish it to make a straightforward statement of
policy that would banish the fears of Catholics; but it
appeared to him to be the too willing accomplice of the
declared enemies of the Church. The Congress of
Chambers of Commerce of the Empire voted by a very
large majority a resolution introduced by the London
Chamber in favor of differential tariffs within the Em-
pire, and called upon each Chamber to take steps with its
own government to have the question made a practical
one. It also declared in favor of the self-governing
colonies bearing their share of the burden of imperial de-
fence. Some of the women who, in connection with the
Female Suffrage movement, have been imprisoned for
breaches of the peace, succeeded in procuring their dis-
charge before the expiration of their sentence, by starving
themselves. Two who had been committed in Birming-
ham for disorder on the occasion of Mr. Asquith’s visit,
tried this plan. The prison doctor fed them with a
stomach-pump. Preparations are being hurried for an
expedition to the South Pole.

Pope and King.—A despatch from Rome says that the
Holy Father was deeply moved at the receipt of the texts
of the cablegrams exchanged between Mgr. Sbarretti,
President of the First Plenary Council of Canada, and the
King of England. The Pope is reported to have said that
this attitude of the head of the greatest empire in the
world contrasted strikingly with the behavior of other
countries whence better things might have been expected.

Irish Notes.—A new clause added to the Budget Bill
discriminates in favor of good landlords, granting them a
25 per cent. reduction on expenditure in improvements
during a certain period. The Income Tax provision
was also modified so as to fall heaviest on absentee mil-
lionaires. It is thought in Ireland that the Lords will
pass the Budget but mutilate the Land Bill. At the
annual Irish Language procession in Dublin, September
21, there were 100,000 in line. Meetings were addressed

by Dr. Douglas Hyde and Messrs. Boland, Field and
O’Donnell, Members of Parliament.

Resolutions were

passed in favor of making Gaelic compulsory in the
National University up to the period of specializing and
condemning the action of the Intermediate Board in
giving a bonus and higher marks to students who pre-
sented German in preference to Irish. Mr. Boland has
brought the matter before Parliament and secured a re-
examination of the Irish papers. Several prosecutions
have been made recently in England for selling English
and foreign goods as Irish. Among such articles were
French lace, Japanese linen, butter, hams and Balbriggan
hosiery from the United States. The Limerick Industrial
Association has warned the public that genuine Irish
goods bear the patented Irish National Trade Mark.
At several of the public receptions given to Capt.
O’Meagher Condon, the Government authorities hauled
down the American Flag, on the ground that such a dis-
play was illegal——-Mr. Thomas Kettle, M.P., who has
lectured in the United States in the interests of Home
Rule and contributed articles on the Irish cause to several
American magazines, was married recently in Dublin to
Miss Mary Sheehy, M.A., daughter of Mr. David Sheehy,
M.P. On their subsequent trip to Egypt, Mr. Kettle
took a prominent part in the Congress of the Young
Egyptians. General Botha, who has just returned to
South Africa, predicts that the Irish party will be in a
commanding position in the next Parliament, as the
Liberals will be returned with a reduced majority.

German Parties.—At the Liberal Congress at Frei-
burg-im-Breisgau (duchy of Baden), Mr. Obkircher,
speaking of the political situation in Baden, made a strong
appeal to the Liberals for resistance to the encroachments
of ultramontanism, declared himself to be against the
Government plan to reform the constitution of the
cantons as this plan was too bureaucratic and was con-
trary to the principle of administrative independence, and
expressed his extreme aversion to a union with the Social-
Democrats who are opposed to the needs of the army
and navy. The great question which just now pre-
occupies all political parties in Germany is the probable
attitude of the next Reichstag. The unanimous opinion
is that the situation has never before been so obscure.
The Conservative party has increased its strength by en-
tering Hanover, which Bismarck defied it to do. Liberal-
ism is weakened by internal dissension. The Socialists
have also many inside splits to mend, especially the
division between the Opportunists and the Marxists. The
Centre is sure to be attacked again by the Socialists and
the National Liberals. Financial reform is the principal
point on which the parliamentary battle will converge.
Then the election of the President of the Chamber will
throw the different parties into definite groups. Finally
the advent to power of new and untried statesmen may
arouse very lively political passions.

Hungary’s Cabinet.—On September 22 the Hungarian
Cabinet, under the leadership of Alexander Wekerle, re-

688 AMERICA

Octroser 9, 1909. No. 26.

signed from office. The Cabinet remained in office after
last April only on the earnest solicitation of the Emperor-
King, Francis Joseph.

India.—A report of an outrage on the railway near
Calcutta was sent out a few days ago. It was stated that
a bomb had been hurled at the treasure-van of a train,
that the van had been shattered, that the guards were un-
injured, that the train had not been derailed, that the
assailants were unknown, but that as the van contained
some £90,000 they were thought to be anarchists seeking
funds for their propaganda. The story proves to be
untrue: its authors have yet to be discovered. The
rains are proving satisfactory. Cotton is doing well
and the price of foodstuffs has fallen.

Acts of the Holy See.—The act of the Sovereign Pon-
tiff which gave the Church in certain countries hitherto
subject to the Propaganda full ecclesiastical status under
the common law, has affected the ecclesiastical colleges
of those countries in Rome and elsewhere. These are
the North American, Irish, Scotch, Canadian, English
and the Collegium Beda in Rome: the Josephinum, Co-
lumbus, Ohio; the American, Louvain; the English and
the Scotch, Valladolid; the English, Lisbon; All Hallows,
Ireland, and Brignolo-Sale, Italy. By a decree of the
Sacred Consistorial Council of July 29, the Pope orders
that the colleges which hitherto depended on the Propa-
ganda shall hereafter depend like all others on the Con-
sistorial Council ; that the Cardinal Prefect of the Propa-
ganda shall continue to give dimissorial letters for ordi-
nation in those colleges, in which he formerlf did so not
as Prefect of the Propaganda, but as Cardinal Protector;
others in Rome are to ask for a Cardinal Protector, and
in others outside the city dimissorial letters are to be
granted according to their constitutions. The students’
oath, somewhat modified, is to be retained in those col-
leges in which it has hitherto obtained, and the title,
servitii ecclesiae is to be substituted for the title, missionis,
These are the regulations in general, but as many colleges
have something special in the constitutions their applica-
tion to each must be studied in the decree itself. With
regard to the Irish College, Paris, the decision has been
postponed.

Pius X has confirmed the regulations of Leo XIII
concerning the emigration of Italian priests to America.
Moreover, since the fifth rule governing mere visits has
been used to frustrate the others that relate to acquiring
permanent domicile, it has been made more stringent.
In future Ordinaries can give permission for such visits
only in cases of strict and urgent necessity when there is
no time to have recourse to the Holy See. Such visits
are limited to six months, and the Ordinary is bound to
inform the Congregation of the Council at once of any
permission he may give. The Pope takes the opportunity
of this confirmation to regulate emigration of priests
from other European countries to America, and all emi-

gration to the Philippines. No European bishop may
grant dimissorial letters to a priest wishing to settle in
America until, having informed the American bishop to
whose diocese the priest wishes to go, by private letters,
of his age, mental and moral qualities, he has received
this bishop’s consent. Should a priest wish to visit
America, he may receive dimissorial letters for six months
provided the necessity be urgent. In this case the urgency
must be stated in the letters, and the bishop to whose
diocese he is going must be informed. With regard to
the Philippines all priests are bound by the rules regulat-
ing the emigration of Italian priests to America, with this
difference, that for priests in North America permission
must be obtained from the Apostolic Delegate, Washing-
ton.

Without special permission of the Holy See religious
orders and congregations of men are forbidden to re-
ceive as novices or to the vows the following: those who
on account of immorality, or other crimes, have been ex-
pelled from lay colleges: those who for any reason have
been dismissed from seminaries and ecclesiastical or re-
ligious colleges: those who have been dismissed from
another order or congregation whether as professed or
as novices, or who, if professed, shall have obtained a
dispensation from their vows: those who, admitted either
as professed or novices into one province of an order or
congregation, have been dismissed from it and seek admis-
sion into another province of the same order or congre-
gation. The profession of such will be null and void.

The Archbishop of Carthage and Algiers, having dis-
covered the tombstone of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas
and their companions, took occasion to beg the Holy
Father to raise the rite of their feast to that of a minor
double. His Holiness has granted the petition, has had
the office prepared and has ordered the feast to be cele-
brated by the whole Church on the sixth of March.

Protestant Church Union.—The Bishop of Winchester
(England), Bishop Williams of Marquette (Protestant-
Episcopal Church), the Vice-Chancellor of the University
of Cambridge, and the Chancellor of Salisbury Cathe-
dral arrived in Stockholm lately to confer with the Arch-
bishop of Upsala and other ecclesiastical dignitaries of.
Sweden for the purpose of bringing about closer rela-
tions and eventually intercommunion between the Church
of England, the Church of Sweden, and the American
Protestant-Episcopal Church. We may expect some in-
teresting theological pronouncements regarding the
Church, the sacraments and orders in connection with
the negotiations.

Belgian Teachers’ Congress.—At the annual Congress
of the Federation of Christian School Teachers at
Bouillon, papers were read on School Hygiene, on Pro-
fessional Schools in the Primary Department, etc., and
the feature was an eloquent speech of M. Godefroid
Kurth, of the Belgian Historical Institute at Rome, and
a contributor to “ The Catholic Encyclopedia.”

—— mae £8.46 «»

OcrToBer 9, 1909. No. 26.

AMERICA

689

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

The Comet and the Slander

Tagged to the fiery tail of Halley’s comet is a venerable
slander on the Church to the effect that, on its appearance
in 1456, Calixtus III promulgated a Papal Bull against it.
Comet and slander always appear simultaneously. We
wondered in what quarter of modern journalism the
calumny would show itself during the present visit of the
comet. What was our surprise to see it swim into our
ken from the editorial page of the Scientific American for
September 25!

Now a scientific paper ought not to leave its chosen
domain of technical facts to chronicle ecclesiastical his-
tory; but, should it be tempted to do so, it should strive
to maintain a scientific regard for truth in accordance with
its character and purpose. The truth in the present case
was not so hard to come at. The Nineteenth Century
and After for September has an article by E. Vincent
Heward, F.R.A.S., in which the editor of the Scientific
American might have discovered the true story of the
Pope and the comet. Similar versions of the same story
are numerous in reliable histories. A reference to his-
torical documents reveals the fact that the Papal Bull in
question contained no reference to a comet; but merely
an order that supplications be made to avert evils which,
in the opinion of astronomers of the day, would follow
in the wake of the comet.

The error of the editor of the Scientific American sug-
gests some interesting reflections. The first is that he, in
common with a large number of “ enlightened moderns,”
never dreams of testing the veracity of an absurd story in
which the Church plays a ridiculous part. He takes it
for granted that the history of the Church is on its face a
collection of absurdities, in which intelligence and en-
lightenment are altogether absent. If a single instance
of the Church’s ignorance and superstition is of doubtful
value, there is no particular reason for rejecting or in-
vestigating it. If it is not true, it is at least ben trovato.
It is veracious by implication. It fits in with the general
character for puerile nonsense which the Catholic Church
possesses in the eyes of “ progressive scientific men.”

This is our first reflection, and it bears rather grievously
upon the editor of a paper who, we suppose, does not care
to alienate that section of his readers who happen to pro-
fess and practise and regard with sensitive reverence the
teachings of the great Church which he so gratuitously
slanders.

Our second reflection is more general. Had Pope
Calixtus III paid less regard to the ipse dixits of the
astronomers of his day, he would not have afforded even
a remote occasion for the derision which later scientific
writers have heaped upon him. And yet modern scien-
tists are forever girding at the Church for her reaction-
ary and obscurantist policies, because, forsooth, she does

not embrace unreservedly every theory that contemporary
science proposes with dogmatic vehemence. It is an in-
teresting day-dream to sit back and conjecture how many
of the Popes since Calixtus III would be furnishing
grounds for “ scientific” laughter a century or two after
they had passed away, if they had been prone to act upon
all the alleged discoveries made by the wise men of science
among their contemporaries. In such an event the cate-
chism would take on the mutability of a scientific text-
book. The latter is out of date in less than ten years
after its publication. The real joke-books are not medie-
val Papal Bulls. If the editor of the Scientific American
wants a good laugh we refer him to the scientific text-
books of the past. We are afraid his sense of humor is
not sufficiently developed to detect the amusing cock-
sureness about everything under heaven, which inspires
and colors the scientific writings of the present.

J. J. D.
America and the Geographers Before Our Era

We have watched the gay sails of the Phoenician and
the well-trimmed galleys of the Greek, as they passed
through the Straits of Gibraltar and out upon the broad
Atlantic. We have heard the long sweep of their oars,
as, day by day, they plied those endless wastes of water,
so weird and so mysterious to the hearts of their first
explorers. We have been able to trace the path of their
keel, as it turned towards the Isles of the Blessed or the
Ultima Thule of the North. Perhaps, in fancy, the
reader may even have followed, like De Costa, their
merchant-sailor into strange and wondrous lands, “ coast-
ing the unknown shores, passing from cape to cape and
from bay to inlet, gazing upon the marvels of the New
World, trafficking with the bronzed Indian and barter-
ing curious wares for barbarous gold; and then shaping
his course again for the markets of the distant East to
pour strange tales into incredulous ears.”

This may not all be fancy, as our author remarks, and
indeed it was one way possible in which the ancients
can have obtained their settled belief in some country
lying beyond the farther shores of the Atlantic—perhaps
some vast and continental land. But there was still
another way, far less conjectural, which lay open to
them, a means no less certain than that which Columbus
possessed, whence they could divine, without possibility
of error, the existence of such a country. This was
nothing less than their knowledge, inherited by them from
the earliest ages, of the sphericity of our earth. Such a
doctrine carried with it an evident corollary, which men
like Plato, Aristotle, Erastosthenes, Strabo and Pliny
could not fail to see; namely, that sailing westward over
the Atlantic Ocean, land must finally be reached, even
though it were no other than the farthermost parts of
the continents already known to them. Columbus himself
never expected to accomplish more.

The idea of a spherical earth is associated in our minds
with the names of Copernicus and Galileo. We are apt

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OcrosBer 9, 1909. No. 26.

to forget that these merely rediscovered what had been
a familiar scientific tenet almost twenty centuries before
their day. It is thought that even the Egyptians had
arrived at this truth, written for them in the heavens
by night, as often as the shadow of the earth athwart
the moon told the story, then as now, of how that earth
was shaped at the Creator’s will. Babylonian astrono-
mers, too, are credited with this knowledge.

The Homeric bards, it is true, still believed the earth
to be absolutely flat and round, “ round as the shield of
Achilles.” But even as early as the sixth century before
' Christ the doctrine of the earth’s spherieity seems to have
been publicly taught in Greece by Pythagoras and
Thales. Erastosthenes, in the third century, not only
held the earth to be a globe, but calculated its circumfer-
ence with astonishing correctness, defined an equator,
and drew lines of latitude and longitude, if we may so
call them. But perhaps the most familiar illustration of
the earth’s figure is that presented in Plato’s “ Phaedo,” a
ball, encircled with variously colored strips of leather that
represent the varying zones. He says it is “very
large, and that we (the Greeks, etc.) who inhabit some
small portion of it, from the river Phasis to the Pillars
of Hercules, dwell about the sea, like ants or frogs about
a marsh, and that many others elsewhere dwell in many
similar places.” Such was the view, with some playful
admixture of imagination, expressed by the Socratic
Club at Athens. Aristotle added to the astronomical
reason for the globularity of our earth another, based on
his observation that matter naturally assumes a spherical
shape, as drops of water that fall in rain.

Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, all are cited in evidence of the
same prevalent conviction among the learned. Strabo,
who lived shortly after the beginning of our era, con-
sidered the southern portion of our globe to be unin-
habited, because of the blaze of heat which forms the
fiery belt of its equator. He admitted, however, that
there might be other countries unknown to Europeans
and inhabited by races of men different from these. Thus
even this geographer treated with courtesy the opinion
that there might exist an inhabited northern part of our
continent, a populated North America. He would not,
however, deign to give the matter any farther considera-
tion. The known inhabited section of the earth, which
alone interested him, he compared to a cloak spread
out upon the ground, the narrow upper portion
of which represented the northern countries. This famous
cloak- or mantle-theory was to be graphically handed
down to posterity in the map of Ptolemy—the best the
ancients could accomplish. To picture scientifically an
entire globe on a flat surface was no simple problem and
one which neither Greek nor Roman ever solved.

Pomponius Mela, in A.D 40, divided the earth into five
zones. Two of these, the temperate northern and the
temperate southern, he claimed were inhabited. Between
these, however, the earth was thought to be girdled with
a zone of fire which made all intercourse impossible

forever. The very whales could not pass it in the lowest
depths of water, so seething was the ocean under that
equatorial heat. It may, perhaps, be no irreverence for
us to wonder in what mysterious manner the old geogra-
pher could have obtained his certain information concern-
ing the inhabitants of that other hemisphere. The belief
in this fiery zone continued on towards the time of
Columbus and formed a logically invincible argument
against all who held the theory that the southern portion
of our earth could be peopled with men. “If this were
so,” the objection ran, “ then they could not be descend-
ants of Adam; for if sprung from Adam, how could
they have passed that blazing belt of fire?’”’ Then, forc-
ing the conclusion, the very existence of another side to
the earth was utterly denied. Yet let us be fair even
here. It was not the scripture learning of the theolo-
gians and their firm belief in a single origin of the
human race—a truth which science is ever more and
more clearly confirming—that were at fault ; it was rather
Strabo and good Pomponius who were to blame.

Yet all these theories, whether ancient or modern,
could have placed no obstacle in the way of an early
scientific discovery of our continent, such as the Greeks
and Romans, with the knowledge that they possessed,
could certainly have accomplished, but such as Columbus
alone has actually achieved. Why, then, we are tempted
to ask, did the ancients not act on their convictions ?

If, in the days of Columbus, there were faint rumors
of a Norse or even Celtic discovery that perchance came
to the ears of the great discoverer—a mere possibility—
were there not motives of a similar nature that might
have moved the Greek, in the Platonic days or after,
to have thrown open long before our era the gates of our
western continent? The gain, it may be objected, did
not seem worth the venture; yet its visions would not
have failed to allure the heart of the pagan sailor, and the
glory alone would have sufficed him. But the courage,
too, was wanting to hazard all to verify a theory, no
matter how firmly maintained. The crafts of the an-
cient, it is true, were frail; yet they could safely breast
the billows of the Atlantic. When, therefore, all other
reasons have been assigned, this must be the final one:
that there was not to be found in all the Socratic circle
or in the schools of Greece and Rome a man who united
in himself the learning, the skill, and the courage for such
an undertaking, all which were comprised in the person
of the brave Catholic Genoese. Yet even he might have
faltered in his task had not the splendor of the cross
forever shone before him and the love of the Virgin
Immaculate fired his heart to seek in all, and above all,
the greater glory of God.

So, under his guiding hand, sailed forth, in God’s own
time, the Santa Maria, to gain new realms for Christ
and for His Church. So, at length, was accomplished
the one and only scientific discovery of our continent,
the one and only lasting revelation of the New World
to the Old. All other claims that may be raised, all

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earlier discoveries that may be proved, shall ever—with-
out prejudice to their own fame—add brighter splendor
to the name of Christopher Columbus.

All hail, then, to the Santa Maria, and to her captain,
client of our Lady, who, under the light of her guiding
star, has given to us for our inheritance her land of the
Immaculate Conception! JoserH Husstern, S.J.

Priestly Vocations

“ Something is wrong in a Catholic community where
vocations to the priesthood do not germinate and bloom.
Either there is in that community a lack of the true
Christian piety which rises, at least now and then, into the
heights of self-sacrifice and divine love where the priest-
hood is born; or there is a lack of that sacred knowledge
which leads and enables pastors and people to understand
those sublime soarings of the soul and to aid them in their
upward flight.”

These soul-searching words of Archbishop Ireland
seem to come as a message to priest and people, to parent
and child. It is a lamentable fact that some dioceses of
our country are still largely dependent upon the charity
of other American bishops or the missionary zeal of
Europe for the priests needed in their every day religious
ministrations. Is it not about time for the Church in the
United States to become “ self-supporting,” as far as vo-
cations to the priesthood are concerned? Is the republic
to remain, in this respect, a missionary country on a par
with Madagascar, China and Japan? Does God fail the
Church in the matter of priestly vocations? If not,
whence and why the lack of priests? A missionary sent
to this country is a missionary taken away from the
Kaffir and the Mongol, yet we “stand by the wayside,
begging.”

What is a vocation? It is a disposition of Providence
which calls one to a particular state of life in which he is
to work out his eternal salvation. Whoever follows his
vocation cooperates with God’s grace towards reaching
the Creator’s object in calling him into being; whoever
misses or disregards or resists or rejects his vocation puts
himself out of harmony with God’s ordinary Providence.

There are as many vocations as there are ways of
reaching Heaven, but the word is more commonly used to
signify a calling relatively permanent and fixed. Hence,
an occupation that entails no lasting obligation and that,
without sacrifice of principle or ideal, may be readily
dropped for another quite different, is not, in our sense, a
vocation.

As the functions of the sacred ministry are a part of
the plan of Providence, it follows that there must be vo-
cations to the priestly state, that is, if the Church is to
exist in her organic entirety, there must be a priesthood
and some of her sons must be called to discharge its
duties. The vocation to the priestly office is given of
God as a precious nucleus, the due development of which
secures a worthy candidate for the Sacrament of Holy

Orders. All hinges on the due development. God does
not force our wills. Saul stricken to earth in a blaze of
divine light, could still have become either an apostle or
an apostate. If that priceless germ of vocation to the
priesthood exists, how is it to be fostered until it ripens
into full maturity? First, by Catholic home life, the
shield of innocence and piety, the mainstay of religion.
Where parents set before their children the example of a
truly Catholic life, they are cooperating with God’s
grace unto a happy eternity for themselves and their off-
spring.

Over and above certain pious practices, the child, ac-
cording to his ability, ought to understand his faith; else
what he says or does in the way of religious observance
will lack purpose and soul. To understand his faith is
to love it, to take a personal interest in it, to make it a part
of his everyday life. He will then see in the priest not
merely a respected stranger or an honored guest, but
rather a revered and trusted friend, one set aside and
sanctified for a divine work in the Church. A full knowl-
edge of his faith makes the boy a better Catholic, a better
citizen. The ungenerous child is not the rule but the rare
exception.

Few Catholic parents, if any, are so ungrateful to God
as deliberately to thwart or stifle their son’s possible vo-
cation to the priesthood, yet what their consciences would
keep them from attempting expressly may be effectually
accomplished in a roundabout way. For example, in a
home where worldly success is the one object sought,
where frivolous amusement is the noblest aim, where de-
votional exercises are pruned to their barest essentials,
where whatever is given to God is given grudgingly, what
prospect is there that the tender plant of priestly voca-
tion will flourish? “ Thy destruction is thy own, O
Israel.”

How ably soever he may be seconded by the Catholic
home and the Catholic school, the chief factor in develop-
ing vocations is the priest. Long enough before the time
of grave danger for their souls, his fatherly interest will
prompt him to know his spiritual children, to interest
himself in their welfare, to share their childish joys and
sorrows, to guide their minds and hearts towards all that
is pure, noble, holy. While keeping high ideals before
them, he will not repel them by cold indifference nor
crush them with harsh, unsympathetic words.

Vocation should declare itself when a youth is of an
age to know his own mind. The pious desire of a boy
in the First Communion class may mean nothing and may
mean much. Again, signs of vocation may appear and
then become dormant, as it were, until the genial sun-rays
of a second spring arouse them to renewed life and ac-
tivity. Though the matter is full of mystery, for here the
Creator is dealing with the creature in the sacred secrecy
of the soul, the prudent spiritual director will not err in
his decision. If the priest be so engrossed in other parish
work that he feels the lack of leisure for a matter so vital,
his life of labor ought to warn him that he will one day

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need help in his holy ministrations. Whence is it to
come ?

To foresee and ward off spiritual dangers and to
remedy spiritual ills is the great work of the physician of
souls. Many a youth has laid by his school books for the
summer with his gaze fixed on the sanctuary as his goal.
But a deadly blight strikes the budding flower. The
sacred ministry, with all its wonderful possibilities for
helping others on the way to Heaven, no longer appeals
to him. Why? Because the spirit of evil, who is not
longing for devoted priests, has cunningly tried not only
to destroy a vocation but to bring about complete spiritual
A few words of paternal advice and en-

shipwreck.
Choice

couragement may save a vocation, even a soul.
plants need care; weeds thrive without it.
Monuments are raised to the memory of the dead, who
may have slight claim to the grateful remembrance of the
living. What nobler monument could one ask for him-
self than to have led some chosen soul to the service of
the altar? What the faithful help to accomplish by
giving of their abundance, the youth singled out by a
priestly vocation is called to do by giving himself. The
greater the offering, the greater the promised reward.

D. P. 3.
Reforming Legal Procedure

The scandal of the law’s delay, amounting through
congested court calendars in many instances to a sub-
stantial denial of justice, and the involving of trial issues
in a maze of specious technical quibbles with a speculative
hope of decisions on appeal made, not of the case in point,
but on errors of detail, have long vexed the reformers of
our legal manners and customs. Mr. Paul D. Judge, an
attorney of New York, has planned an amendment to the
Code by which to inaugurate an improvement in the pro-
cedure in courts of record by means of which, he con-
tends, a prompt as well as just determination of matters
under litigation, may be arrived at. His recommenda-
tion is:

“ That after issue is joined, all direct testimony be ex-
changed preliminarily by counsel in affidavit form, with
the objections to be made thereto, to the end that a better
understanding of the real dispute may be had, and in
order that trials may proceed after a more comprehen-
sive preparation, and with less likelihood that the deter-
mination will appear to be the result of chance, or to be
based upon a purely technical consideration of some in-
cidental issue,

“It is not proposed to dispense with the oral testimony
of any witness, and the right of cross-examination is not

affected. The reduction of all proposed proofs to writ-

ing, within a reasonable time after the commencement of
any litigation, and the service thereof, as is done with
pleadings and briefs on appeal, is advocated as a step
towards perfection in the preparation of cases for trial,
and as a blending of the best in the two old systems of
procedure.

“This would extend to evidence, which is the vital
part of a case, that pre-examination which pleadings and
briefs are subjected to in consequence of their disclosure
to and criticism by the adversary, before they are pre-
sented to the court. In support of this proposed innova-
tion he points out that a disclosure of evidence is fre-
quently effected by interlocutory motions, and that when
a new trial is had, evidence has been previously ex-
changed; and that while there is a reluctance about
making any disclosure to one adversely situated, the re-
sult is usually satisfactory.”’

The reciprocal nature of the transaction insures fair-
ness and tends to simplify the differences between liti-
gants. The suggestion which Mr. Judge makes that the
proofs should be settled and determined and disclosed to
both parties early in the progress of an action and be-
fore the trial, he claims, is a practical one according to a
recommendation recently made in New York by the
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the First
Department (May 7, 1909) as follows:

“If each party were required to furnish to his adver-
sary before trial, they might, in some cases, materially aid
the court in doing justice to them; but this is a subject
for the consideration of the Legislature.” (Schmidt vs.
Bailey, 116 N. Y. Supplement, 805.)

The improvement is not, in his opinion, to be made by
requiring the pleadings to be more specific, nor by giving
greater scope to bills of particulars, which amplify the
pleadings. In the average case the pleadings are un-
worthy, he says, of exhaustive scrutiny by the court in
the absence of the proofs, and are unsatisfactory as a
basis either for a reliable opinion for counsel to form and
guide his client by, or on which the court may make a
judicial determination. No matter how detailed they
may be they usually amount to conflicting challenge and
counter-challenge; they will rarely be the test. The
proofs are the substance of a case, and therein will be
found its weakness or its strength; and in this country
where lawyers share in the responsibilities of govern-
ment, being officers of one of the three divisions, more ef-
ficient service will be rendered to the communities and
citizens by the Judicial Department, when facilities are
given to the lawyers to concentrate their attention from
the outset of each case upon the whole and not as now,
upon a fraction only of the evidence.

Tuomas F. MEEHAN.

Political Crisis in Austria

The present political situation in the Austro-Hun-
garian monarchy presents an interesting picture to an
outsider, while it is viewed with concern, and even alarm,
by those whom it directly concerns. It is to be doubted
if there is a more complex political problem in Europe.
Both halves of the monarchy have their domestic politics,
but there exists also a common ground between them,
which is not infrequently the scene of bitter conflicts,

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and which may witness soon one of the bitterest of all.
From this latter phase of the situation we shall prescind
for the present, and confine our attention to the
Austrian half of the monarchy. Readers of AMERICA
are already familiar with the circumstances under which
the Reichstag in Vienna closed its last session. After
weeks of fruitless obstruction, the ministry was forced to
give up in despair the attempt to carry through any legis-
lation, in spite of the fact that many important, even
vital problems are pressing for legislative solution. Great
things had been hoped for from this the first Austrian
Parliament elected through universal suffrage, and the
first part of the session, during April and May, strength-
ened these hopes quite effectively. Then came the con-
flict over the agrarian bank of Bosnia; and the result
was that the house became divided into two nearly
equal groups, all the Slav parties, Liberal, Radical and
Catholic, banding together against the Germans, while
the Austrian Social-Democrats remained neutral (al-
though their substantial interests as Germans should
have led them to take sides with the Germans), and
voted with one side or the other as they chose. Usually
they united against the Germans who are made up almost
entirely of their bitterest and most dangerous opponents,
the Christian Socialists. The resulting deadlock forced
the proroguing of Parliament after weeks of bitter
struggle.

Immediately upon the closing of the Reichstag steps
were taken by the peace-loving parties to bring about a
settlement of the differences between the various fac-
tions, so as to allow of an unobstructed session during
the autumn. For this purpose a conference of the
leaders of all the factions was held, but led to no posi-
tive result, Dr. Glombinski, the member who called
this conference together, being merely commissioned to
proceed further with his efforts towards peace. It soon
became clear that peace was not to be expected until the
Bohemian Landtag was once more made capable of car-
rying on legislative work. This Bohemian legislative
assembly was closed last year because of the opposition
of the German-Bohemian representatives, who pro-
tested against what they considered an unfair and dis-
proportionate representation in the State government.
The Czechs, who make up the non-German inhabitants
of Bohemia, became thereby much embittered against
the Germans, and a kind of race-war followed in Bo-
hemia as well as in other parts of Austria where the
Czechs live in large numbers, especially in Lower
Austria.

The Czechs form the strongest and most aggressive
portion of the “ Slavische Union,” as the group of Slav
parties is called in current nomenclature. This Slavische
Union is very bitter against the present ministry,
in which they consider the Slavs have not sufficient
representation.

M. J. A.

Catholic Pamphlet Literature

We often wonder whether English-speaking Catholics
have as a body the faintest idea of the treasures within
their reach in the cheap publications of Catholic Truth
Societies. The Catholic Truth Society of London issues
regularly at a nominal price small pamphlets dealing with
matters of vital Catholic interest and written by scholars
of marked literary skill. Its publications are on the
counters of Catholic book-shops in this country and are
easily obtainable. The Australian Catholic Truth So-
ciety, 312 Lonsdale street, Melbourne, also issues original
papers of a useful and interesting kind on Catholic topics.
Among its recent pamphlets we note several by Rev. M.
Watson, S.J., on such subjects as the Sacrifice of the
Mass, the art of dying happily, and veneration for our
dead.

Similar societies exist at our door. The International
Catholic Truth Society, Brooklyn, New York, while act-
ing as a distributing agency for other Truth Societies,
sends out publications of its own. Among these is the
pamphlet entitled “ Is One Religion as Good as Another ?”
by Rev. J. MacLaughlin, and edited by Rev. L. A.
Lambert. This work has gone into a 55th edition. Still
another New York society engaged in the same work is
the Cathedral Library Association. Its latest booklet is
on “ The Roman Church Before Constantine,” translated
from the French of Mgr. Louis Duchesne by the late
Rev. Joseph W. Reilly.

Another useful series of cheap publications is that of
the Catholic Library, issued by the C. Wildermann Co. of
New York. They consist of little paper-covered vol-
umes of choice stories for children. The sixty volumes
so far published constitute a most valuable collection of
Catholic fiction for young children.

The growing tendency on the part of Catholic ac-
tivities to give publicity to their work, in the frequent
publication of pamphlet literature, is one of the best signs
of the times. On the one hand, it stimulates Catholic
publishers to take an interest in cheap and popular forms
of good literature; and, on the other, it lets Catholics
know what Catholics are doing and frequently puts into
our hands valuable articles which otherwise might in all
likelihood never have reached us. Such an article is the
lecture on “ Character and Character Formation,” de-
livered by Rev. Robert Swickerath, S.J., at Holy Cross
College, and published in a neat pamphlet by the college.
Similarly the Mallory Prize Essay for 1909, on “ The
Advisability of Electing United States Senators by Popu-
lar Ballot,” by Earl John Mohn, of the Georgetown Law
School, is a study of a political subject which covers the
grouna logically and historically with concise thorough-
ness, and gives the reader, besides, an exalted opinion of
one of our great Catholic colleges.

Catholic pamphlet literature is not confined to Truth
Societies and educational centers. The annual reports of
Catholic societies engaged in philanthropic work make

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No. 26.

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absorbing reading and help us to realize how active and
various is the apostolic spirit of the Church. The most
recent report of this kind to reach us is that of the
Christ Child Society, of Washington, D. C. This society
has branches in various cities of the East and West, and
some idea of its manifold interests may be had from a
mere enumeration of its various committees. We have
reports of committees on Fresh Air, Sewing Schools,
Instruction, Girls’ Clubs, Libraries, Italian Work, Boys’
Clubs, Hospital Work, etc., etc. The pamphlet, contain-
ing all this, gives us, besides, photographic glimpses into
the world which the society’s charity penetrates and
illumes. The president of the society is Miss Mary V.
Merrick, The Decatur, Washington, D. C.
J. J. D.

What Did Pope St. Nicholas Say?

We showed lately how the Rev. Dr. McKim, of Wash-
ington, in a sermon attacking Papal Infallibility, utterly
misapprehended the teaching of St. Innocent I. and St.
Gelasius I. in the same sermon he cites St. Nicholas I.
as declaring that a child baptized by a woman in the name
of Christ alone, is validly baptized. Here again he mis-
understands, and in this case misquotes. The question
submitted to St. Nicholas referred to baptism by a Jew,
not by a woman. This is very important, as will after-
wards appear. Dr. McKim, not understanding its im-
portance, changed the Jew into a woman, no doubt in good
faith, to make his case practical with regard to his hearers.
hese are the facts:

The Bulgarians told the Pope that many in their coun-
try had been baptized by a certain Jew, whether Christian
or pagan they knew not, and asked what they were to do.
The Pope answered that if those in question had been
baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity or only in the
name of Christ, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles,
ince St. Ambrose says that it is one and the same thing,
they are not to be baptized again. But they were to in-
quire first whether the Jew was a Christian or a pagan, or
whether he afterwards became a Christian. Moreover,
that in his opinion the teaching of St. Augustine must not
be passed over, that an error in the minister or in the re-
ceiver concerning the Father or the Son or the Holy
Ghost, does not invalidate baptism; that this is not in-
validated by any perversity of either the giver or the re-
ceiver; that it can be both given and received in schism
(Mansi, Ampl. Coll. Conc., Vol. XV, col. 432).

When one finds himself entangled in a difficult piece
of country, it is a good plan to get a general view of the
lay of the land. This is excellent, too, when there is
question of getting at the meaning of a difficult text. The
Bulgarians had many difficulties. The answer just
quoted is to their hundred and fourth. Let us take a
glance at their fifteenth which also has reference to irregu-
lar baptism. The unfortunate people had been deceived

this time by a Greek, who, pretending to be a priest, had

baptized many of their children. They cut off his nose
and ears, gave him a severe beating, and drove him out of
their country, of which treatment the Pope by no means
approved. But now, what was to be done about the chil-
dren? The Pope answered, that if they had been baptized
in the name of the highest and undivided Trinity by any
Christian, they were Christians and were not to be bap-
tized again (Op. Cit., col. 408). If, then, the passage
under discussion have the meaning assumed by Dr. Mc-
Kim, this strange consequence would follow that bap-
tism by a Jew has an advantage over. baptism by a Chris-
tian, since the latter must stick to the traditional form,
while the former might either use this, or the other, “I
baptize you in the name of Christ.” This is enough to
make one suspect that Dr. McKim has not caught the
Pope’s meaning. St. Nicholas rests on the authority of
St. Ambrose, St. Augustine and the Acts of the Apostles.
Let us turn to them to elucidate the matter.

St. Ambrose says in the passage to which commentators
agree that the Pope refers: ‘“ Baptism is full if you con-
fess the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. If you
deny one you ruin everything. And just as if you com-
prehend one in speech, either the Father, or the Son, or
the Holy Ghost, but deny not in faith either the Father,
or the Son, or the Holy Ghost, the sacrament of faith is
full; so, even though you may say the Father and the
Son and the Holy Ghost, if you lessen the power of the
Father or of the Son or of the Holy Ghost, all the mystery
is empty.” Here, evidently, there is question, not of the
baptizer, but of the baptized; not of the form of baptism,
but of the faith of the receiver. It is he who confesses
the Holy Trinity. Moreover, baptism in the name of the
Father, or of the Holy Ghost, was never heard of. What
St. Ambrose says is, that faith in the Blessed Trinity,
either explicit or implicit is necessary for the fruitful
reception of baptism: the explicit denial of one of the
Persons makes the baptism fruitless. Now this may be
transferred to the intention of the one baptizing. He
may intend to act in the name of the Blessed Trinity,
the full and adequate cause of baptismal sanctification,
or in the name of the Holy Ghost, to whom this sanctifica-
tion is attributed, or in the name of Christ, who instituted
the sacrament, and is its primary minister; provided the
matter and form be duly applied, the baptism is valid.
This was what St. Nicholas answered; and it makes clear
why he lays such stress on the teaching of St. Augustine,
that, since it is Christ who baptizes in every case, he who
intends to do what Christ instituted baptizes validly, even
though he be separated from the Body of Christ, or do
not hold the true faith of Christ. It also explains his
allusion to the Acts of the Apostles; for its expression, to
be baptized in the name of Jesus, means to receive the
baptism instituted by Him and administered in His name.

We may presume that in the day of St. Nicholas as
now, the Holy See answered questions as they were pro-
posed. In the matter of the Christian Greek, the intention
did not come in. The doubt was whether a layman could

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baptize. The answer was: if he used the true form, the
baptism was valid. In the case of the Jew the difficulty
was not about the form; that had already been settled, but
about the fact that the baptizer was by race a Jew. Had he
the right intention? Find out whether he was a Christian,
was the answer, or whether he ever became a Christian.
This is of primary importance in settling the question of
intention. If he intended to act in the name of the Holy
Trinity, in whom he believed, and whose names he pro-
nounced ; or if, lacking faith in the Trinity, he neverthe-
less intended to do what Christ had instituted, then, due
matter and form being presumed, his baptisms were valid.
And this doctrine of St. Nicholas in the ninth century is
the teaching of the Church to-day. H. W.

Events of Interest in Belgium

The chief events of interest have been the deliberations
of the central section of the committee on the military
bill, the threatened invasion of cholera, and the aviation
week at Tournay. Two weeks ago the committee pre-
sented to the Government eighteen questions on the bill.
The answers came promptly. They have been com-
mented on variously, some even in the Catholic camp
accusing them of intentional vagueness. But due al-
lowance must be made in these statements for private
opinions. The central section of the committee held
several meetings before and after the answers to the
questions, and adjourned after having made several
amendments, mostly verbal, tending to bring the mean-
ing into clearer relief. As for public sentiment, it
becomes daily more clear that any addition to the mili-
tary burden will be firmly resisted by the whole country,
Catholics and enemies alike. This it is claimed the new
bill does, and the Government will surely have to make
some concessions in order to pass the bill.

Any one knowing the Belgian and Dutch characters
would hardly believe them capable of showing such ex-
citement as that manifested on the appearance of the
cholera at Rotterdam, where over twenty have already
succumbed to the dread plague. Every day new cases
are announced in Belgium, only to be denied a day later,
as being cholera, it being clear that the commonest of
ailments has once more in each case been mistaken for it.
As yet no case is announced officially in Belgium.

An event that calls for explanation happened at the
Trappist Monastery at Tilburg in Holland near the
Belgian frontier. The beer of the Tilburg Trappists is
well known here; it was owing to transactions con-
nected with the selling of this beer that the Abbot,
Father Verbrugge, of Antwerp, engaged in some specu-
lations and finally found himself in inextricable diffi-
culties. A canonical visitation followed, and then an
order from the Holy See for all the monks to evacuate
the monastery. What looked at first like wholesale
disobedience was due to these orders having been inter-
cepted by the abbot, who remained refractory. When,

however, they were notified, the whole community, save
a very few, promptly obeyed. At this juncture, how-
ever, an agreement was made with the creditors, and all
the monks have now returned from their exile. The
non-Catholic papers exploited the incident, until it was
pointed out that it was merely a case of one individual
having contracted unlawful debts in his own name, and
for which he alone was responsible.

The aviation week of Tournay was not so great a
success as that of Rheims. Only one aviator of note,
Paulhan, appeared, while the few local aviators that
showed themselves were not so brilliant, one, Van
Damme, nearly killing himself. During all the disputes
about Cook and Peary, Belgium has firmly stood by
Cook, for it is not forgotten here that he was surgeon
on the Belgica of the Belgium Antarctic Expedition in
1897-99. His presence was announced at Brussels for
September 11, and it was a great disappointment that he
left for America without staying over. Cook is a close
friend of M. Lecointe, of the Brussels Royal Observa-
tory. ve

The Third ‘‘ Katechetische Kurs ’’ in Munich

The Third Catechetical Conference held in Munich
from August 30 to September 3, inclusive, was a suc-
cess in every respect. In the first Conference in 1905,
658 delegates’ tickets were given out altogether (335 for
full members who made the whole course, 120 day-tickets
and 203 for single lectures). This year 997 tickets were
distributed (402 for full members, 396 day-tickets, and
199 for only one lecture). More than forty dioceses of
Germany, Austria and other countries sent their rep-
resentatives. There were fourteen lectures and three
model lessons for catechism teaching given by twelve
lecturers, who were all admirable selections for the task.

The principal theme of the whole Conference was
Religious Education. All lectures tended to the same
idea, though treated from different standpoints: the
ethic, psychological, religious and merely practical. The
spirit and attention were excellent during the whole ses-
sion, and not only priests, but also lay school masters and
mistresses listened to the lectures.

The new Archbishop of Munich, a tail and imposing
figure, appeared twice and addressed the assembly in a
short speech. He expressed his keen interest in the
catechetical question and encouraged the members of the
course to continue in their endeavors to improve cateche-
tical and religious instruction. There was unanimous
satisfaction and enthusiasm about the whole perform-
ance. While in the first and second Conferences the dis-
cussions about the so-called “ Minchener Methode”’
were rather vigorous; this time peace prevailed and no
differences disturbed the proceedings. The practical re-
sult will be the further improvement of religious instruc-

tion and a new plan of instruction for several dioceses.
E. W.

AMERICA

No. 26.

OctToser 9, 1909.

CORRESPONDENCE

Socialism Undermining French Loyalty

Paris, SEPTEMBER 23, 1909.

During the last few weeks, the French papers have
devoted much time and space to an incident that has
lately occurred on the eastern frontier. A “ mitrailleuse,”
the mechanism of which is a carefully kept secret, was
stolen and taken to Strasburg by a French corporal
named Deschamps, who was bribed by the German au-
thorities. The incident in itself is one that might occur
in any country, but the investigation to which it gave
rise brought to light the complete and thorough organiza-
tion of the intelligence department or, to use a more
trivial expression, the spying system on the German
side, and to the inefficiency of the same service in
France.

Allowing for the natural exaggeration of the emo-
tional Gallic temperament, there is some truth in the
remarks of the French papers. They observe that, like
other public services, the army has suffered from the
disastrous interior policy of the Government, and that
France is surrounded by a network of spies, as regularly
organized as they were before 1870. At that date, the
Franco-Prussian war proved the inefficiency of the in-
telligence department in France, and since the Dreyfus
case, this department has practically ceased to exist.
“We do not wish for war,” says one of the leading
papers, “ but we have a right to expect that our mili-
tary chiefs should have a knowledge of our neighbor’s
territory, resources and strength, equal to that possessed
by our neighbors regarding us.” Beneath what is, after
all, an incident of secondary interest, lies a fact of graver
import. There is no doubt that the: Socialistic theories
that are being encouraged by the Government have pene-
trated into the ranks of the army and that the sectarian
doctrines taught in the public schools contribute to
sap the foundations of respect in the mind of the young
soldiers who, in consequence, are more easily led to com-
mit breaches of discipline. Yet, in spite of all, the mili-
tary spirit is still strong in the French nation, and the
French soldier, small and insignificant in appearance,
has not his equal in resourcefulness, cheerful endur-
ance and, in most cases, in devotion to his chiefs.

The general elections take place next spring and the
Catholic papers are already exhorting their readers to
unite their forces against the common enemy. Want of
unity has ever been the bane of French Catholics, and
the exhortation comes with a special significance at a
moment of grave peril. Mgr. Delamaire, one of the
leading French bishops, has issued a new edition of the
diocesan Catechism of Cambrai, in which he clearly
states the duty of every Catholic elector:

“In what does your duty as an elector consist? In
voting for the most honest and most Christian among
the candidates, for those who will best promote the
general good.

“Ts it a sin to vote for men whom we know to be
dishonest, anti-Christian and anti-patriotic? Yes, it is
even a grave sin, for thereby we assume a certain re-
sponsibility in the evil that such men may do to re-
ligion and to the country.

“Ts it a fault to abstain from voting? Yes, it is
generally a fault, for thereby we may help the success
of men whose influence is dangerous.”

It may be objected that a catechism is meant for chil-

dren rather than for their elders, but these children are
the electors of the future, and moreover it has hap-
pened more than once that through their means useful
lessons have been conveyed to their parents.

Colonel Keller, who is at the head of a powerful
Catholic organization, and M. Francois Veuillot, a lead-
ing journalist, are no less clear and precise in their
advice to the Catholic body. They earnestly urge Roy-
alists, Imperialists, Conservatives of different shades of
opinion, to forego their private views and to unite on
the common ground of religious liberty, a cause that
appeals to all children of the Church.

The inefficiency and brutality of the lay infirmarians,
men and women, who have replaced the nurses in the
French hospitals, are frequently commented upon in the
papers. In this country until recently, nursing was
taken up as a means of earning a livelihood rather than
as a vocation, except in the case of religious. The ex-
pulsion of the latter from the public hospitals has con-
tributed to the development of the different societies,
who, under the common patronage of the Red Cross,
have been founded for the training of lay nurses. In
time, the unskilled and unconscientious paid nurses will,
it is hoped, be replaced by women who have taken up
nursing as a vocation and whose steady devotedness to
their calling is worthy of all praise. An unwilling
homage has been paid to the Sisters by the very men
who expelled them from their posts. When an epi-
demic of smallpox broke out lately at the Toulouse
hospital, the lay nurses got frightened and the nuns
were recaljed. The same incident occurred in Brittany.
It has been said, to justify or to excuse the expulsion of
the nuns, that they were wedded to their old ways and
unwilling to adopt the prescriptions of modern methods.
For certain cases there may have been some foundation in
the accusation, but the Journal de Médecine of Bordeaux,
the Combat of St. Quentin, the Révetl Médical, none of
which are clerical papers, testify to the efficiency of the
nuns and to their willingness to adopt the methods that
have been introduced by modern science. “ They were,”
says the Réveil, “honest, disinterested, devoted; they
did better work and cost us less than the grasping and
wasteful nurses who think only of extorting money from
their patients.” A splendid example of generosity has
been given by Madame Fould, whose foundations in the
“quartier de la Glaciére,” one of the poorest suburbs in
Paris, are placed under the care of the Sisters of Charity,
and, being private property, cannot be touched by Gov-
ernment. Besides a créche, an orphanage, a pharmacy,
a small hospital, the establishment has a training school
for nurses, who, after spending two years there, re-
ceive certificates that enable them to take excellent posi-
tions either as private nurses or else in nursing homes.
This foundation has a special interest in the eyes of
those who know how difficult it is for a French girl of
good birth and small means to earn her living, hampered
as she is by the prejudices of her surroundings.

Madame Fould’s initiative opens a path that, as time
goes on, will be eagerly followed by girls of gentle
birth and refined training, for whom a convent life in
present circumstances is impossible and whose poverty
often precludes them from marrying. “ Here our lives
are useful and busy, and if we have ben tried we are
helped by the thought of comforting others,” said the
young widow, who led us through the bright, airy, com-
fortable quarters allotted to the nurses who, thanks to
Madame Fould, are being trained, free of expense, to
a life of usefulness and independence. This is the first
foundation of its kind attempted in France by private

OctToBerR 9, 1909. No. 26.

AMERICA

697

initiative, and, given the increasing necessity for French
women of good birth to work for their living, it an-
swers a call and is therefore of timely interest at the
present moment.

Citizens of a free country must have some difficulty
in realizing the acts of petty tyranny by which the
French Government shows its anti-religious spirit. This
year, for instance, by order of Government, the pilgrim-
age trains were in many cases stopped at the last
moment; when all their arrangements were made and
they were ready to start, the pilgrims were informed
that they were deprived of the advantages that had
hitherto been theirs. The control exercised by Govern-
ment over railway companies renders acts like these
possible ; though less flagrant than the wholesale system
of robbery organized against the Church, they are per-
haps even more contemptible in their miserable petti-
ness.

As your readers may remember, the Archbishop of
Auch, Mgr. Ricard, was condemned to a fine of five hun-
dred francs for having, in a pastoral letter, blamed the
atheistical tendency of certain books that are put into the
hands of children in the Government schools. He re-
fused to acknowledge the right of the tribunal to inter-
fere in what he considered the legitimate exercise of his
duty as a pastor and declined to pay the fine. In conse-
quence some of his furniture was seized and sold by
auction on Friday, September 10. It was immediately
bought back by his friends and the necessary sum paid
by them, but the incident brought home to the minds
of the people, who are impressed by facts rather than
theories, the odious tyranny of the Government. Freed
as they are now from the fetters laid upon them by the
Concordat, the French bishops are better able to resist
its unjust demands, and since they have ceased to be paid
by the State, they have gained in independence and
dignity what they lost in material advantages. In this
respect, much as we must condemn the Government’s
line of action in its break with Rome, we cannot but
recognize the bracing effect of their new found liberty
upon the bishops of France.

The people of Auch understood the lesson; not a man
could be found in the town to move the archbishop’s furni-
ture from his episcopal palace; the Government offi-
cials had to employ workmen who were strangers to
the place, and a demonstration in honor of the archbishop,
organized by the leading citizens of Auch, was attended
by an enthusiastic multitude.

AN ANGLO-FRENCH CATHOLIC.

An English Catholic Congress Proposed

LonpDON, SEPTEMBER 25, 1909.

The Catholic Truth Society Conference at Manchester
this week has been a notable success and will be the
prelude to greater things. The papers read were of a
high order of merit. They dealt with the work of the
Catholic Truth Society, Catholic Education, the organiza-
tion of the study of social and industrial questions from a
Catholic point of view; the Socialist movement, and the
means of meeting the anti-Catholic and Rationalist prop-
aganda carried on by means of newspapers, pamphlets,
cheap editions of infidel works and the like.

Mr. Hilaire Belloc, one of the few Catholics who se-
cured a seat in Parliament for an English constituency at
the last general election, read a paper on Socialism. Mr.
Belloc has had a remarkable career. Of mixed French

and English descent, he served his term of military
service in the French army as driver in the artillery.
He went through his University course at Oxford, and
then devoted himself to literature, journalism and politics,
with holidays of travel that he turned to good purpose
in charming descriptions of life in many lands. He has a
delightful style, and has won a high place among our
younger men of letters. He has a career before him.
There was in his analysis of the fallacies and dangers
of Socialism the insight of the man who has not merely
a book knowledge of the subject but who has also as a
working politician been brought into personal contact
with the leaders of the movement in England. He
showed that its doctrine is economically unsound,
and that its ideals are unchristian and even antichris-
tian. This was confirmed by the arguments of the
speakers who took part in the discussion of the paper.
It has made a great impression on the public, if one may
judge from the comments it called forth in the non-
Catholic press. One leading London daily paper called
attention to the “remarkable fact” that even a local
meeting of Catholics, like this, spoke out plainly and
unanimously on the Socialist propaganda, condemning
its tendencies as clearly as if it were the Roman Curia
making a declaration on the subject, and added that such
a pronouncement would be always found to be very much
what Rome would say, this community of view being
one of the great sources of the strength and influence of
the Catholic body. The writer evidently had in his mind
the contrast with the Babel of contradictory or divergent
views usually manifest in non-Catholic gatherings.

Next year there will be a new development. The an-
nual gathering will be no longer merely the Conference
of the Catholic Truth Society. A stage has been reached,
to which the promoters of the first conference at South-
wark more than twenty years ago looked forward as an
ideal that might some day be attained, but was then quite
beyond the bounds of the practical. In future there will
be each year an English Catholic Congress, in which all
our Catholic associations will cooperate and which will
cover the whole field of Catholic action. In making this
announcement the Archbishop of Westminster said, that
he and his colleagues of the episcopate had been en-
couraged to venture on this new departure by the proofs
given at the Euchafistic Congress of last year of how
much could be accomplished by united Catholic organiza-
tion. These were his words:

“An International Congress, such as we were privi-
leged to welcome to Westminster last year, would have
been impossible without a great deal of preparatory
organization, and our guests have been pleased to bear
grateful testimony to the completeness of those prepara-
tions. But the elements, the unity, of that organization
had not to be created for that special occasion. They
were already in existence, they had only to be brought
together, and in their union the whole secret of our or-
ganization was found. Those elements, those units, have
not fallen back into space ; they are all in existence ready
to hand. If they had within them the power of organiz-
ing an International Congress on an enormous scale,
they are surely no less capable of giving us the organiza-
tion that we need year by year for a complete Catholic
Congress for the whole of England. And I feel that
we should be wanting in our duty to God, to the Church
and to our country were we not to draw forth from the
memory of the nineteenth Eucharistic Congress the
courage, the inspiration and the energy that we need,
in order to give to our annual meetings that full and

definite form which the first promoters of these annual

698 ; AMERICA

Ocroser 9, 1909. No. 26.

meetings already had in their minds twenty-one years
ago.”

The Archbishop announced that a permanent Congress
Committee would be formed to act as the central link of
our Catholic organizations, its members being delegates
from the various societies. This will give us an easy
means of securing cooperation in their working, and
thanks to this practical federation of existing agencies,
the effective working power of the Church in England
will be greatly increased.

The Catholic pilgrimage from England has been at
Lourdes this week under the leadership of Dr. Brindle,
Bishop of Nottingham, our “ soldier bishop,” for so many
years a chaplain in the wars of Egypt and the Soudan.
There were four cures during their stay. An English
girl was cured on bathing in the water of the spring at
the grotto. The three other cases were those of French
pilgrims, a man and two women. All three were cured
during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament as Our
Lord passed by. It is remarkable that during the last
ten years there have been more cures during the proces-
sion than at the grotto itself. An eminent French phy-
sician, the chief of the Medical Faculty of Lille, pro-
duced at the London Eucharistic Congress the official
statistics of cures, and showed that each year the propor-
tion of cures during the procession showed a notable
increase.

A number of High Churchman are petitioning the
Anglican episcopate to restore the service in commemora-
tion of the death of “King Charles the Martyr” on
January 29th. Introduced into the Book of Common
Prayer under Charles II it was struck out of it just fifty
years ago. It is a curious fact that the “Churches ”
of the Reformation have never claimed to produce
saints, with the solitary exception of this half-hearted
claim of the Established Church to canonize poor Charles
I. as “ St. Charles, King and Martyr.” He could have
saved his life, say the High Churchmen, by sacrificing
the Church of England to the Nonconformists. This
is the essence of the claim. A. H. A.

Austria’s Catholic Congress Postponed
INNSBRUCK, SEPTEMBER 23, 1909.

Your correspondent had hoped to send you with the
present items an account of the seventh Congress of
Austrian Catholics, which was scheduled for the week
of September 5. In your issue of August 28 a hint was
given of some of the difficulties in the way of a peaceful
session of the Congress, which the Slovanian Catholics
decided not to attend, because of the insistence, im-
prudent and untrue though it was, of the editor of a
German Catholic paper, that the Slovanians were in-
competent to take part in a German Catholic Congress,
because of their political alliance during the late session
of the Reichstag with the Social-Democrats. The at-
tempts of better-minded editors, in pointing out that the
Congress was a non-political affair for all the national-
ities of Austria, had no effect. The Slovanians refused
to take part, and a similar attitude was taken up also by
the Czechs. The committee of arrangements still hoped,
however, to be able to carry the sessions through. Full
liberty was to be allowed the delegates to use their native
language in the discussions and open meetings; parallel
assemblies could be held if the numbers justified a
division. These sensible ordinations gave rise, unfor-
tunately, to two great misunderstandings, brought in
by the anti-Catholic press; the first, that permission to
the Czechs to use their own language smacked of a

Czech invasion of Vienna; and the second, this par-
ticularly among the Czechs, that the regulation of the
language question was out of the competence of the
Congress. This second misunderstanding gave grave
reason to fear that, in the present burning state of the
language question between Germans and Czechs, a dis-
cussion of the committee’s ordination during the Con-
gress would, to say the least, give rise to much unpleas-
antness and would bring political animosities into a non-
political meeting. Just at this juncture the “ German-
national” party began a series of street demonstrations
in Vienna against the Czechs. Taking everything into
consideration the committee decided that the Congress
had better be postponed, and they gave notice to this
effect the week before the date set for the opening. The
postponement created surprise and even indignation in
some Catholic circles at first, but the sentiment seems
now to be one of general commendation.

The Emperor-King has made the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Freiherr von Aehrental, an hereditary count,
as a reward for his masterful handling of the delicate
negotiations during the late trouble with Servia, the
result of which was to raise Austria’s political prestige
among the nations of Europe higher than it has been 1n
several decades.

The street demonstrations in Vienna against the
Czechs mentioned above were, it turns out, participated
in by only a few hundred German nationalists. The
demonstrations have been repudiated by the Christian
Socialist party. This latter party, it is true, has made it
a capital point in its program, to preserve the German
character of Lower Austria, and has therefore opposed
the attempts of the Czechs to open schools in this
state, in which the language of instruction shall be
Czech. But the party has no desire to use violent
methods; rather their campaign is to be carried on with
political and economic weapons. The demonstrations
have only made the work of conciliating the Czechs and
Germans more difficult, and have caused the Czechs in
some parts of Austria to boycott goods of German manu-
facture. To the subject of the Czech schools I hope
to return again. The political situation in Austria should
be of interest for English Catholics because, when all is
said and done, the fact remains that the internal dis-
sensions are mainly, if not entirely, the result of anti-
Christian and anti-Catholic demagogy. The healing
of the dissensions would seem to be impossible with-
out the influence of Catholicism, which is the religion
of ninety per cent. or more of the people, who are still
Catholic at heart, though the heads of many of them may
have been turned by the specious rhetoric of Liberalism
and Social Democracy. M. J. A.

The Third General Sodalists’ Day at Vienna

From September 3 to 6 the “ Third General Sodalists’
Day ” took place at Vienna, the capital of Austria. In
1906 the international Marian Congress took place at
Einsiedeln, Switzerland, one of the most ancient and
renowned sanctuaries of the whole world. Its most
brilliant feature was the first “General Sodalists’ Day
of all the German Nations.” A general Austrian So-
dalists’ Day had taken place the year before, November,
1905. But now Germany and the German part of Switz-
erland had sent representatives of their numerous so-
dalities. The meeting was so successful that it called for
repetition in the coming years. In 1907 the second Gen-
eral German Sodalists’ Day was convened at Linz, Aus-

ay

OctToser 9, 1909. No. 26.

AMERICA 699

tria. It surpassed the former “Day,” and Father George
Harasser, S.J., published its speeches and reports in a
handsome volume of 200 pages. Anyone who wishes to
obtain a correct understanding of the nature of the So-
dality or Congregation, as it is also called, its aim and
management, its history and great results, cannot find,
in my opinion, a more instructive guide than this report.
(Reden und Referate des II Allgemeinen Sodalentags
in Linz 1907. Von P. G. Harasser, S.J. Graz und
Wien, 1908. Verlagsbuchhandlung, “ Styria”). The
following year saw the “ Praesides”” (Directors) of the
sodalities of the German nations in large number assem-
bled at Innsbruck. This meeting was even more fruit-
ful, since the directors could freely discuss all ques-
tions concerning sodality life, were able to put questions,
to exchange experiences, to make suggestions and to
encourage one another.

This year it was again General Sodalists’ Day. No
more favorable place could have been chosen than Vienna,
as there is hardly a city or town in the world where
the sodalities are in a more flourishing condition. Secu-
lar priests and various religious orders have combined
with the Fathers of the Society of Jesus to establish
sodalities all over Vienna for all classes, all ages and
sexes. There were last year at Vienna 84 sodalities: 26
for men, 18 for young men, and 40 for ladies. Most
of them have weekly meetings, and the members, who
are carefully selected and admitted only after a rather
long probation, have the true apostolic spirit, together with
an earnest resolve to sanctify themselves. Father
Abel, S.J., gave a graphic description of how all these
sodalities were called into life. Up to 1890 there ex-
isted less than half a dozen, but under his direction a
new era began, and now about 10,000 members are en-
rolled.

The “ Day ” of Vienna proved a perfect success. The
general meetings and the deliberate sessions were pre-
sided over by the Count von Walters, president of the
Piusverein, assisted by the Very Rev. Mgr. Mehler of
Ratisbon, and Director Leb of Vienna. For the open-
ing session the venerable Cardinal Katschthaler, Arch-
bishop of Salzburg, in spite of his more than 77 years
of age, made the journey to Vienna. “ Because,” he
said, “I am a Sodalist myself, and perhaps one of the
oldest here present, since I was enrolled in 1856, fifty-
three years ago.” But he had another and a special
reason. In 1910 the International Marian Congress is
to take place in his episcopal city, and for this reason
he begged that the next General Sodalists’ Day might be
held at the same time as this Congress, a proposal which
was joyfully accepted. After the Cardinal had given
his episcopal blessing came the opening speech of
Mgr. Mehler, who gave a glowing description of the
International Eucharistic Congress at Cologne; of Father
Gaudentius, O.M.Cap., who showed that the sodalities
were the best means to solve the “ social question ”; of
Director Leb, who as a true “ Wiener Kind,” showed with
consummate humor that a sodalist need not be sad and
downcast, but full of a joyful spirit ; of Father Abel, S.J.,
who gave a most interesting account of the growth of
sodality life at Vienna; of Mgr. Stober and Father
Boissl, S.J., who held the large assembly spellbound and
filled them with joy and enthusiasm.

Similar general meetings were held on the two fol-
lowing nights in the large Musikvereinssaal, as the
Blumensaal, where the opening session took place could
not accommodate the crowds. Once more Father
Abel, S.J., ascended the pulpit, and the storm of applause
showed in what love and affection the sodalists of

Vienna hold him. “ Sodality and Catholic Organization ”’
was the subject of his discourse, and he showed how the
sodalities had succeeded in bringing together the Cath-
olics to break the power and terroism of the Liberals
and Jews. But even more deserving and praiseworthy
was the silent work of the sodalities in the Societies of
St. Vincent and St. Elizabeth, and similar organizations.
He was followed by a rousing speech from Mgr. Mehler
and Father Kolb, S.J., on “ Sodality and Press.” No-
body could resist the powerful and convincing argu-
ments of the latter that it was no longer a private interest
but a public necessity for Catholics and especially so-
dalists to oppose with all their might the wicked press pro-
ductions and aid the Catholic press. “ There is nothing
that could supply its place.” Hence the duty of the
sodalists to join the Piusverein and similar organizations
for the extension of the Catholic press.

On Sunday night the room was packed to its utmost
capacity. Mgr. Marschall, Auxiliary Bishop of Vienna,
brought the blessing of the Holy Father. Director
Moser spoke on “ Sodality and Family,’ Father Knebel,
pastor of a congregation of 12,000 souls at Mannheim,
on “ Sodality and Care of Souls”; and the concluding
speech was delivered by Father Boissl, S.J., who gave
a magnificent picture of the battle that is being waged
between Christ and Antichrist, especially in Austria. It
was a masterpiece of eloquence. In truth, the president
could state that the Sodalientag had been a success and
surpassed its predecessors.

At the General Communion in the “ Kirche am Hofe,”
built on the site of the Carmelites’ Church, where St
Stanislaus had prayed, close to which he had lived and
miraculously received the Holy Eucharist from an an-
gel’s hand, many thousands received the Body of Our
Lord. There was a magnificent procession, conducted
by Mgr. Marschall, with the renewal of the Act of Con-
secration to the Blessed Virgin before the statue of the
Immaculata, where centuries ago Emperor Ferdinand
had consecrated his lands and peoples to Our Blessed
Lady. Here the venerable Cardinal Gruscha, Archbishop
of Vienna, awaited the procession to take part in the
devotion, as his eighty years did not allow him to march
in the ranks.

All this was certainly most inspiring, filling the par-
ticipating sodalists with new love towards their Mother
and her organization. But even more useful were the
deliberative sessions of the directors and officers of the
sodality. An idea of their work may be gathered from
the resolutions drawn up by the committee, at the head
of which was the Rev. Father Harasser, S.J., to whose
great efforts and solicitude the perfect success of the
Congress is especially due. In substance, the following
resolutions were adopted:

The care of the spiritual life is the first and main duty
of the members of the sodality, wherefore it is earnestly
recommended to carry out the Pontifical decree of fre-
quent and daily Communion.

Apostolic activity is the last and highest aim, where-
fore the sodalists should form sections for different
public needs and take energetic part in the work of
Catholic organizations.

Regarding the press, it is recommended: No so-
dalist should be without his sodality paper; each should
join the Piusverein or similar organizations and form sec-
tions to aid the Catholic Press.

The next Sodalists’ Day will take place in conjunction
with the International Marian Congress at Salzburg,
which is to be followed by a pilgrimage to Altétting.

; me. 8

700 AMERICA

OcroBer 9, 1909. No. 26.

AMERICA

A CATHOLIC REVIEW OF THE WEEK

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1909.

Entered as second-class matter, April 15th, 1909, at the Post Office at New
York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3d, 1879.

Copyright, 1909, and published weekly, by the American Press, 32 Wash-

ington Square West. Joun J. Wynne, Pres.; Micwart J. O’Connor,

Sec.; J. J. Witiiams, Treas.

SusBscrIPTIONs, PosTPAID:
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Address:
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CABLE ADDRESS: CATHREVIEW.

Dr. Butler’s Evasion

Doctor Nicholas Murray Butler still remembers with
some irascibility the strictures passed earlier in the year
upon the ethical and religious teaching imparted in
American universities. In an article in-the New York
Evening Post, of September 25, he referred sneeringly
to three popular magazine articles of a sensational color,
“the purport of which was that conspicuous teachers in
American colleges did not teach their pupils things known
not to be true, but did inculcate openness of mind and the
habit of scientific inquiry.”

“Soon after,” continues Doctor Butler, “a presum-
ably good bishop, turning from the faith once delivered
unto the saints, announced in stentorian tones, that were
heard by the newspapers from Maine to California, that
he would as lief send a boy to hell as to one of the large
American colleges. Within ten days the number of as-
piring candidates had increased, we were told, by many
hundred,” and he attributes all attacks, similar to that of
the bishop’s, to jealousy, envy, melancholy and ignorance.

Now, of course, we do not approve of Doctor Butler’s
criticism of the bishop against whom the passage above
quoted is directed. But we should like to obtain the
judgment of some of Doctor Butler’s own co-laborers—
whose opinion could not be liable to the suspicion of bias
—as to the seemliness of the words we have cited.

First, he accuses the bishop with an air of fleering con-
tempt and condescension of “ turning from the faith once
delivered unto the saints” in order to attack the teach-
ing of the universities. The faith once delivered to the
saints includes a belief in a personal and Triune God,
in the Incarnation and divinity of Christ, in the existence
of one divinely authorized and infallible Church, in the
immortality of the soul, in the sacramental and indis-
soluble nature of marriage, and, as practically all this

faith is held in derision by many teachers of philosophy
and science in American universities, we fail to see how
the bishop departed from that faith when he acted upon
the sworn obligations of his sacred office in publicly de-
fending it with the greatest possible emphasis.

This is so clear that we are at a loss to discover the
meaning of Doctor Butler’s words. We have tried hard
to get at his point of view; but we cannot absolve him
in our own minds from the grave fault of appealing to the
prejudices and thoughtlessness of the public in order to
asperse a dignitary in the Catholic Church.

Doctor Butler accuses the bishop of ignorance. Why,
then, does he not categorically deny that the list of re-
ligious negations we have enumerated are not taught in
American universities? He cannot. He also attributes
the criticism of the universities to jealousy, envy, and
melancholy. The President of Columbia University
should not indulge his pique by such vague, coarse and in-
defensible charges against one quite as distinguished as
himself.

But the most unseemly part of this passage we are com-
menting on is its final sentence. In spite of the bishop’s
attack upon the universities, the Doctor tells us gleefully,
“within ten days the number of aspiring candidates had
increased, we are told, by many hundreds.” Is this really
so? Was any one actually keeping account of this phe-
nomenal increase? Could the Doctor establish his boast
by figures? We doubt it. Even if true, what of the
main question? The bishop stated that irreligion and
certain unethical ideas were the common teaching of
American universities, and that these were dangerous to
the moral and spiritual character of youth according to
the notions of all Christian peoples. Will Doctor Butler
deny this? He may maintain that Christianity is not true,
and that “openness of mind and the habit of scientific
inquiry ” are better substitutes for young people. That
is beside the question. The bishop declared that uni-
versity teaching was unchristian. Will Doctor Butler
answer that specific accusation ?

Playing with Fire

As the dusk is deepening and the hush of evening is
settling down, the senses become more keenly alert and
delicately responsive. Familiar objects take on fanciful
shapes which seem to waver and dance as the eye descries
them through the half-light of the gathering gloom.
There they are in all their reality, but who can exactly
trace their shadowy outlines? What was done long ago
and what has happened far away make wondrous tales
of sights and sounds perceived at nightfall and cast a
filmy mantle of romance over this borderland between day
and darkness. Yet truth and fiction can be separated.
Careful investigation can distinguish between the pic-
tures painted by fancy and the objects that have a real
existence.

There is another borderland, that vague, uncertain

—— ~~

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October 9, 1909. No. 26.

AMERICA 704

country just beyond the horizon of life. It is there, but
who can truly picture it? Who can dispel the mists that
have gathered over it? It is mysterious, searchless, full of
fascination. The dangers of the dark depths of the cafion
and of the dizzy heights of the mountain thrill the ex-
plorer with awe, yet they beckon him on to other and
more dangerous feats. One standing on a high cliff or
gazing from the river bank into the eddying waters may
experience almost an inward suggestion to hurl himself
headlong to certain death. Again, mere bravado may
carry a man to lengths more desperate than any urged
by bounden duty. Hence the allurement inseparable from
all that concerns the spirit world. Curiosity, rashness,
the element of danger, the sense of mystery, one and all
appeal to poor humanity as did the fabled sirens to
Ulysses. Why not make the experiment?

It is now so near the fashion to pooh-pooh the harmful-
ness and irreligiousness of running riot in spiritism that
it behooves Catholics to take their bearings and direct
their course by the pole star of divine revelation, lest,
by bending the knee to Baal, they mock the majesty of
God. As counterfeit currency hints at genuine bank-
notes, as quackery suggests a medical profession, so from
the demonstrated fraudulency and knavery and trickery
of so many so-called mediums and seers reason gathers
that there may be a world unknown to sense yet real, ex-
istent, mighty. Where reason halts and stammers, revela-
tion speaks with God-given distinctness. No less than
earth and air, there is a spirit world.

Separated from it by a chasm, men would span that
chasm. In a spirit of unrighteous inquisitiveness they
would ignore God’s will, as they would jeopard their own
well-being, if only they could grope in that darkness and
bring to the light of the sun some stolen fruit as a proof
that they have rushed in where entrance is forbidden. By
divine disposition there have been revelations from the
spirit world, but there have not been many. Taken alto-
gether, how little they have added to what we already
knew! For reasons that are a part of the divine secret
such unusual and exceptional things have been; yet, if
the past proves anything, it proves that spiritual manifes-
tations are not the ordinary and divinely approved way
to increase our knowledge.

Those deepest in the mire of spiritism are forced to
admit that wicked spirits sometimes seem to crowd out
those called “ good”’ and manipulate the sources of in-
formation in a way to cause the blush of shame on any
but the degenerate and depraved. We are not to enter-
tain for a moment the thought that the angels of heaven
are in any way connected with manifestations in which the
persons actively concerned, the things done, the way they
are done and the reason for doing them are alike repug-
nant to what God has declared to be good, holy, true.

As far as the natural way of knowing is concerned,
the souls of the dead are wholly cut off and segregated
from the living. They know some particular thing by the
knowledge that they still have of what was, or by special

enlightenment by God. Thus, of themselves, they
cannot prophesy, for the future is outside of their knowl-
edge. For prophecy, they need a special divine help.
Who will have the hardihood to say that God will give
such help for the gratification of the morbidly curious,
the incredulous, the mercenary, the profane?

There are beings that can so envelop themselves in a
halo of light, as to dazzle and deceive even the elect, if
that were possible, beings the deformity of whose under-
standings and the malignity of whose wills can be cloaked,
but not corrected or reformed. “Our wrestling,” says
St. Paul, “is not against flesh and blood but against the
spirits of wickedness.”

It has been averred, with what warrant we are not
prepared to say, that as certain bodily ailments though
yielding to treatment leave in the patient a predisposition
to another and more severe attack, so the dabbler in
devilry, as the dupe of the spiritists must be truthfully
called, even though he repent of his sin has to fight against
a secret stealthy yearning for the forbidden practices.
Satan does not readily leave the field.

Good intention is a spiritual treasure, but it cannot be
honestly urged in self-defense by any Catholic who courts
grave harm to his soul by indulging in what may in re-
ality be friendly relations with the spirit of evil. Those
who would rush into such danger might well ponder over
the words of Holy Writ quoted by Our Saviour against
the arch-deceiver, ” Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy

God.”

College Ideals

President Arthur T. Hadley of Yale, last Sunday,
addressed the freshmen on the occasion of their first ap-
pearance since the opening of the scholastic year. The
sound sense, which usually characterizes President Had-
ley’s addresses, is conspicuous in his latest utterance.
Referring to the religious element which he regards as
essential to the training of the student he remarks that
“there are two sides to a man’s religious life: an emo-
tional side and an intellectual side. His heart and his
mind must act together. He must intend to follow the
right as he sees it; he must also take the trouble to see
it as it is.”

President Hadley would be the first to admit that
for the student the trouble to see the right will be im-
measurably increased if the President himself or the pro-
fessors of a college or university have a wabbly or erro-
neous concept of what is right or of how the right is
determined. An important function of education he
claims is to develop habits of mental responsibility. But
habits of right thinking and of right doing can never be
implanted or developed where fundamental notions of
morality are assailed or left undetermined. Had Dr.
Eliot promulgated the principles of his new religion dur-
ing his presidency it would be still harder to understand
how Catholics or those who shape their conduct by the

RE PT nT

702

AMERICA

Ocroser 9, 1909. No. 26.

basic principles of Christianity could trust the training of
their sons to an influence and an environment so per-
nicious. “ The college,” continued President Hadley, “ is
governed by the men who take the trouble to think. As I
look back on my own college days I am astonished to
find how overwhelmingly true this was. Every man
who thought for himself, whether on the right side or
on the wrong side, was exercising a power over the
lives of scores of others.” How far truer is this of a
college president who, as Dr. Hadley will grant, must
stand for the highest ideals as he sees them and impress
those ideals on professors and students.

3ut sound thinking, however desirable on the part of a
president, is not all-sufficient to produce the effect which
President Hadley contemplates. The professors who
hold daily intercourse with the students have a far more
lasting influence and, to effect lasting results, should be of
on fundamentals with their chief. Nor is this
uniformity enough. Continuity or stability in teaching
what is right is equally essential, for where this stability
habits of right conduct

one mind

is wanting, the development o
and right views upon conduct will be an impossibility.
If the ruling body be indoctrinated with a false system of
ethics, or uphold one system to-day and another to-mor-
row, the students cannot acquire habits of mental sta-
bility or possess any fixed determinant of right conduct.
It is this knowledge of the right, and the uniformity and
consistency of president and professor in teaching and
example that stand as the strongest recommendation of

the Catholic college and university.

Barcelona Again

With how little regard for exactness of statement cer-
tain writers have handled the question of the Barcelona
disturbances is seen in the assertion made and repeated
that the diocesan clergy of Barcelona not only felt their
measure of content over the disasters that had befallen
the regulars, but that some of them had actually taken part
in the acts of incendiarism and pillage. The reason as-
signed by the sapient scribe for sentiments and conduct
so unpriestly was that the hierarchy is recruited from the
regular orders, that the bishops naturally first think of
their own, namely, the monks and friars, and that they
leave the diocesan clergy in obscurity and want. A blow
at the religious houses, therefore, was a blow at the
bishops and a protest against mitred friars who sought
first, last and all the time to further the interests of their
fellow friars while they directed their diocesan clergy
to retire to a distance and assume a comfortable posture.

So strange a perversion of truth deserves to be called
by its own name. Here we are not discussing some vague
metaphysical point about which learned and serious minds
may differ, nor a physical phenomenon in the interpre-
tation of which scientists may not be in accord. A bold
fact is presented: The bishops are from the orders. Let
us examine this statement, for if the peg falls from the

wall, what hangs on the peg falls with it. At the time of
the outbreak there were eight archbishops in Spain, all but
one of them taken from the diocesan clergy. Of the
forty-six occupants of episcopal sees, the Bishops of
Pampeluna, Salamanca and Sigiienza are Augustinians,
and the Bishop of Cartagena is a Piarist. These cities
have not been the scenes of popular outbreaks against re-
ligious. The remaining forty-two bishops, including
those anywhere near Barcelona, are from the diocesan
clergy. Five prelates out of fifty-five are regulars.
Therefore, Spanish parish priests and their assistants are
so hectored and crushed by them that they are driven to
desperation! Such rubbish is not news nor rational com-
ment on news, nor does it contain an excusable error of
fact. One is not bound to know who are “order”
bishops and who are not, but if he wishes to know he can
easily find out. If he wishes to spring a clerical sensa-
tion, he will cultivate sublime ignorance and a pachyder-
matous conscience.

One Contract, One Ceremony

Again comes the obviously false despatch from Paris
that the Vatican permitted a second religious ceremony
of marriage in that city lately. Arturo de Heeren and
Miss Fernanda Wanamaker, it is reported, had a civil
and two religious ceremonies before their marriage was
complete. In these days of loosening matrimonial bonds,
the proverbial triplecord seems necessary to make the
bond strong. Again, too, our Ambassador at Paris per-
sists in misrepresenting the action of the Church authori-
ties. It is perfectly well known that such permissions
are never given. Indeed, before granting dispensations
for marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics, the
express stipulation is made that there be but one religious
ceremony and that this take place before a priest for
witness. Whenever this stipulation is not kept, the parties
are acting in bad faith, to conceal or condone which it is
useless as well as unjust to talk about Vatican favoritism
or inconsistency. In Number 3 of America, page 73,
we showed how egregiously Mr. White erred on this point
at the time of his daughter’s marriage, confirming our
statement by special cable information from the Arch-
bishop of Paris. The Vatican does not interfere in these
matters; they only promulgate the law regulating them,
the Ordinaries of the diocese apply the law, and the
Vatican authorities invariably support them. The Cath-
olic who, after marriage before a priest, chooses to go
through a ceremony before a minister, knows very well
the guilt and the serious penalty of the act.

~7ee

With rumors of prosperity abroad the companies or-
ganized to relieve priests of all solicitude about invest-
ments for their money, are flooding the mails with fetch-
ing circulars. Countless disastrous delinquencies of
such companies in the past should warn priests and
others receiving such invitations against their alluring
proposals.

Ocroser 9, 1909. No. 26. AMERICA 703
man supplied a most informing introduction explaining the
nature and history of “Annatae” or “First Fruits,” and

LITERATURE Dr. Grattan Flood added supplementary First Notes and

The Autobiography of a Neurasthene, as Told by One of
Them and Recorded by Margaret A. Cleaves, M.D. Boston:
Richard @ Badger. ‘

This is the history of a neurotic woman engaged in the
medical profession. In so far as it is the frank confession
of a personal experience it is not without some value in
days when nerves assume large prominence in pathological
phenomena. The patient, whose sufferings are here recorded,
is represented as making a brave fight against her ailment
in order to attend scrupulously and even energetically to
the trying exactions of a physician’s life. The lesson con-
veyed is good,—that the will can and ought to stand erect
in the midst of physical collapse, and that work, even under
distressing circumstances, is “better than what we work to
get,” and often the only cure for temporary accessions of
low spirits brought on by physical conditions. On the
other hand, the author insists on proper rest and nourish-
ment, and, in spite of her occasional lapses into heavy techni-
cal language, drops many hints which may possibly be found
useful by fellow-sufferers. In general, however, we re-
gard with suspicion the minute analysis of personal affliction,
We cannot see much good in it. De Quincey and Marie
Bashkirtseff have made literature out of it and we forgive
them. But it is preferable to suppose that the less introspec-
tion we exercise upon our ailments the healthier we shall be
in body and mind. Each of us, like Robert Louis Stevenson,
has his “little private war with death,” but we ought not to
give it elaborate thought, much less “publish our wistfulness
abroad.” Our business is building the walls of the city, like
the Hebrews of old, with a sword in one hand to beat down
occasional attacks. These latter are the minor incidents of
the day and unworthy of serious record.

J. J.D.

De Annatis Hiberniz. By. Rev. M. A. Costetxo, O.P.,S.T.M.,
with an introduction by Rev. A. CoLEMAN, O.P.., S.T.L., and sup-
plementary Notes by W. H. Grattan Fioop, Mus. D. Dundalk:
Dundalgan Press.

This is a Calendar of the “ First Fruits,” fees levied on Papal
appointments to benefices in Ireland from A. D. 1400 to
1535. It is a monument of painstaking research, and the only
regret is that the venerable author, Father Costello, who
spent close on forty years in Rome, transcribing and summa-
rizing the various Papal documents relating to Ireland, and
those not only from the Vatican Archives, but also from the
“ Archivio di Stato Romano,” now in the hands of the Italian
Government did not live to see its publication. The author added
to the value of his original documents by notes with identifications
of names and places, and interesting notices (in English) of the
various bishops. Yet, strange to say, when the manuscript was
almost ready for press an Irish publisher could not be found until
an enterprising Dundalk printer,—a Protestant, too,—Mr.
William Tempest, J.P., generously undertook the risk of
issuing the first volume, dealing with the ecclesiastical prov-
ince of Ulster, including the dioceses of Armagh, Clogher,
Meath, Down, Connor, Clonmacnoise, Ardagh, Derry, Kil-
more, Raphoe and Dromore.

After the death of Father Costello, at St. Clement’s, Rome,
on March 5, 1906, the work of editing was undertaken by a
brother Dominican, Father Ambrose Coleman, whose edi-
tion of Stuart’s “Armagh” and of O’Heyne’s “Irish Do-
minicans,” is well known to students of Irish ecclesiastical
history. To add to the interest of the work, Father Cole-

Corrigenda, mainly based on the Calendars of Papal Regis-
ters in the Rolls Series.

All students are aware of the obscurity attaching to the
history of the Catholic Church in Ireland during the fifteenth
century. It may be said that the present volume throws an
entirely new light on that period. Quite a mine of absolutely
fresh information is here presented to the diligent inquirer
who carefully explores it. The various benefices, abbeys,
priories and other religious houses in the eleven northern dioceses
forming the Ulster province are here succinctly dealt with,
and the English annotations on the Latin précis of docu-
ments are of the greatest help.

In a word, this volume is of the very first importance,
and should find a place in all well-equipped libraries. It i
to be hoped that its issue will soon be followed by the publi-
ciation of the “Annatae” of the other three ecclesiastical
provinces of Ireland, namely, those of Dublin, Cashel and
Tuam. This desideratum, however, will naturally not be
supplied unless a generous reception is accorded to the
present volume, and therefore we bespeak for it a cordial
welcome.

Mr. Tempest has issued the work in first-rate style, from
the Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, and the frontispiece is an
excellent photo engraving of Father Costello, in addition to
which there is given a photo-facsimile of one of the manu-
scripts in the original contracted Latin. The book has been
issued to subscribers at fifteen shillings, but the selling price
of it is twenty shillings. ERIGENA.

The French Revolution. A Short History, by R. M. Joun-
ston, M. A. Cantab., Assistant Professor of History in Harvard
University. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

What was the French Revolution? Mr. Johnston indicates the
opinions of several historians who have regarded the question
each from his own point of view. He is not actually satisfied
with any, for he tells us that the universities are sending out
every year a large number of technically-trained young his-
torians superior to the men of the older school. He gives no
formal answer to the question himself but adds, what is very
true, that the young historians have over their predecessors this
advantage, that they can study the Revolution in its final results

as these are working out under their eyes, that is to say, as
he very properly terms it, they can put it in its true perspective.
This valuable work he will probably do in a larger book than
that under review, which, as he wisely says, is too brief for so vast
a theme.

One thing in which the younger historians do not surpass
those of former times is exactness of expression, and Mr. John-
ston is no exception. In a chapter well called “ Versailles,”
containing many excellent remarks on the social condition of
France just before the Revolution, he tells us that the society
then existing had been built up by feudalism, medievalism and
autocracy. His meaning seems at first sight clear, and there is
an attractive smartness in its expression. But a little reflection
brings doubt. What does he mean by medievalism? Feudalism
is a specific term; so is autocracy; and we know how both
affected pre-revolutionary society in France. Medievalism is a
generic term, including feudalism itself together with other
things, such as chivalry, the mendicant orders and a belief in
the kingdom of Prester John. Did these help to build up that
society? He goes on to say that the Church turned its miracles
and its terrors, both present and future into the most powerful
buttress of the fabric. Does he intend to assert that it foretold,
say the miracles of Lourdes, and used them to prove that God

704 AMERICA

Ocroser 9, 1909. No. 2b.

viewed with unmixed approval the farming of taxes and the
absenteeism of the great landlords? Can he show that even
contemporaneous miracles were so used? Most probably he means
only that the clergy taught the grave obligation of obedience

to lawful authority which is part of the Gospel, and did not
admonish princes and nobles of their shortcomings in their
social duties as freely as one would wish them to have done;

which raises the rather thorny question of how far the clergy
should enter into these matters, and ignores the fact that man
; of all living beings most adaptable to his circumstances, and
that therefore the men of the eighteenth century did not per-
ceive the defects in its social conditions as we do. Repeating
the same idea he states that the country curés preached Bourbon-
ism as one of the essential manifestations of Providence, an
expression which one who values the exact meaning of terms, is
lisposed to look upon as rank nonsense.

Impartiality is a quality most necessary in an historian.

But it is important to know what impartiality is. A judge
is impartial between two suitors, because he is such a parti-
san of the law that he can take the part of neither until he
finds out which has the law on his side, and this once de-
termined, he cannot refuse to take his part, no matter how
uncongenial he may be under all other respects. On the
other hand, a newspaper that in accordance with some theory
of its own determined a murder to be no crime, could not
be called impartial because it related the mere material
facts with fidelity. In both cases the antecedent principles
affect the whole issue. In the first the principles are neces-
sary, binding the judge no less than the suitors: in the sec-
ond, they are imposed by the warped will of an individual.
Hence the Christian historian is not a partisan because he
treats the Revolution as a crime. He becomes so only if he
misrepresents the actors in it, or hides the grievance that
incited them, or the faults in others that provoked them. The
modern historian who, ignoring the divine law both natural
and revealed, treats it, in conformity with his theories, as
lawful and even praiseworthy, is a partisan from the be-
ginning. It may be difficult for the former to preserve the
perfect judicial temper: it is impossible for the latter. That
Mr. Johnston has a settled opinion in favor of the Revolu-
tion, is evident. Hence despite his good intentions he is its
partisan against the Church especially and also against jus-
tice in general. Thus the Church is not, what his theories
oblige him to assume it to be, a mere corporation with ex-
tensive privileges; nor is it right to speak of the Chevalier
de La Barre as sent to the scaffold by the defenders of those
privileges, for a few blasphemous words. Blasphemy, a di-
rect insult to God, is one of the gravest crimes a Christian
can commit, and it makes no essential difference whether it
be expressed in many words or in few. The mutilation of
a wayside crucifix, of which also La Barre was guilty, is the
grossest outrage in a society founded on the Incarnation. His
wrong idea of the Church leads Mr. Johnston to misappre-
hend the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. He sums up its
social and political affects, it is true, quite satisfactorily.
But he clearly denies its guilt. He evidently tries to avoid
offending the Catholic conscience; hence his calling Gobel,
Archbishop of Paris, instead of constitutional archbishop
shows his attitude. Again he tells how Louis went to his
death after confessing what he thought to be his sins. It
is well known that what grieved the king’s conscience most
was his having signed the law of the civil constitution, con-
sequently, “ what he thought to be his sins,” insinuates the
author’s idea that it involved no sin at all.

Mr. Johnston’s liking for the Revolution leads him to con-
vey a very false idea in his account of the mob that brought
the royal family from Versailles to Paris. One reading his
story would imagine that the women who made it up in

greater part, were respectable wives and mothers roused to
action by the starvation that threatened their families. He
has not a word about the infamous Théroigne, nor does he
give a hint of her abandoned companions and the vile means
they used to seduce the royal guards from their allegiance,
nor how those who had planned the affair had deliberately
taken as their example Balaam who made the daughters of
Madian a snare to the Israelites. On the other hand, he gives
as certain the story that Foulon had said: “Let the people
eat grass,” though he must know what grave reasons there
are against it.

His chapter on the economic crisis is good on the whole.
We should like, nevertheless, to know his authority for the
statement that religious communities speculated in grain and
used their commodious buildings for granaries, which im-
plies that they bought up so much to resell at a higher price,
that they had to turn their chapels, refectories, libraries and
domitories into storehouses. Such traffic is strictly forbid-
den by canon law, and the French communities are not gen-
erally accused of living in open contempt of it. Moreover,
every community had its regular granary; for many culti-
vated their own lands, while each without exception was re-
quired by the law to keep in store a year’s supply of grain
lest it should become a public charge. Hence the storing of
it, notwithstanding the famine that prevailed among the
people, was for the religious a matter of necessity, not of
choice. The chapter on The States-General is also good.
Still it does not bring out clearly that The Third Estate in
insisting that the three should meet in one body, destroyed
the very idea of estates, and utterly subverted the constitu-
tion. Mr. Johnston considers the taking of the Bastile a
matter of small importance. If by this he means that as a
military operation it was insignificant, and that, contrary to
popular belief, the actual numbers of prisoners released was
very small and none could be fairly called a victim of royal
tyranny, he is right. If he means that the first act of overt
rebellion, the first taking of arms against the sovereign, the
first assumption of judicial powers by the mob was unim-
portant in the revolution, we must in company with most
historians, hold that he is wrong.

Though the fault may lie with the printer, there are errors
in French that should not be in a book by a Cambridge M.A.,
writing on a French subject. “ CE&uil-de-Boeuf” is put more
than once for (CEzil-de-Beeuf; “Controleur-Genéral” is put
for Contrdleur-Général; “ Maréchausée” for Maréchausée;
“Mr, Capet l’ainé,” for “M. Capet lainé”; “ Cambecérés,” for
Cambacérés; “Bale,” for Bale and the form “Basle” is also
used; “enemis” for ennemis more than once; “ voulez vous,”
for voulez-vous; “prés,” for prés; “réposer” for reposer; and
what is to be thought of : “ Nous sommes ici par le volonté
du peuple, et nous n’ont sortirout que par le force des bayo-
nettes?” Five mistakes in nineteen words! And why does
Mr. Johnston always speak of the “ Directoire,” while its
members are always “ the directors?” H. W.

In the paper he read at the recent German Catholic Con-
gress, at Breslau, Count de Witt stated that in 1880 the Catho-
lic papers and periodicals of the German Empire numbered
186 with 600,000 subscribers. Because of the trials of the
Kulturkampf and the special work for the promotion of Cath-
olic literature of the societies federated in the Augustinusver-
ein, at the end of 1907 the publications had increased to 480
and the subscribers to two millions. He declared that still
a great deal was to be done for the Catholic press in Ger-
many. It should be further encouraged and diffused, made in-
dependent financially, and scrupulously devoted to the cause
of truth.

a]

OctToBerR 9, 1909. No. 26.

AMERICA

2
Oo
or

Homilies for the Whole Year, trans-
lated from the Italian by the Ricut Rev.
Tuomas Byrne, D.D., Bishop of Nashville.
New York: Benziger Brothers.

Many years of observation and thought
furnished Bishop Bonomelli, of Cremona,
with material for the original of these
homilies. There are so many sets of hom-
ilies, he tells us in his preface, that there
may seem to be no call for another. But
he feels that his years in the pastoral office
have taught him how to prepare a set of
homilies that shall have a right to exis-
tence. Bishop Byrne has provided us with
a carefully prepared translation, from the
examination of which we think the Bishop
Bonomelli reasoned rightly and did well.

First, the homilies are really on the les-
sons and gospels for the Sundays of the
year. A few words are not used as a peg
upon which to hang any kind of a sermon,
but the Scripture assigned for each Sunday
is explained and commented on in a way
to make clearer the meaning, and impart
solid religious and moral instruction. The
illustrious author lives in the present, not
in the past. The instruction that he gives
is for to-day, not for the time of the
Crusades, because he addresses the living,
not the dead. Witness his homily on the
lesson for the second Sunday after Pente-
cost, where he treats of the social unrest
that all feel, all fear. Again, the homilies
for the eighteenth and twenty-second Sun-
days after Pentecost demand careful read-
ing and study, for he deals with Italy’s
present condition and future prospects,
weighty and delicate questions in very
truth.

But we have been culling here and there.
The whole series deserves and will repay
careful perusal. It is a mine of religious
thought. We should have preferred to
see prefixed to each homily some title
indicative of the theme developed in it;
but a diligently compiled alphabetical index
to each volume points to the various topics
treated or discussed.

_—_ —

The American Jewish Year-Book for
1909-1910. Philadelphia: The Jewish
Publication Society of America. This
book gives the reader matter for reflec-
tion. It shows the Jewish people orga-
nized, and patient and persistent in work-
ing for their race. An example of this
is their action with regard to the Pass-
port Question with Russia, which they
have kept before Congress and the State
Department for over thirty years, and
have even lifted up to the place of Presi-
dential politics. The ill success of their
efforts hitherto have not discouraged
them from counting on an eventual tri-
umph. The honors that Jews have re-
ceived, as well as their misfortunes, the
Zionist and Ito movements, in a word,

Israel, is here recorded. We are struck
by the small sums contributed to their
work. Thus, for the rebuilding of their
synagogues in San Francisco less than
$38,000 was received by the American
Jewish Committee and the balance-sheet
of the Publication Society sums up only
a little more than $26,000.

Hiawatha’s Black Robe, (Father James
Marguette, S.J.). By E. Leany. Dublin:
Catholic Truth Society.

This life of Father Marquette charms
the reader. Although it is told in simple
style and with a successful effort at his-
torical exactness, the narrative has about
it the fascination of fiction. Incidentally
the author convinces one of the fact
that the poet Longfellow drew much of
his material for “ Hiawatha” from the
journal of the great missionary.

Historia de la Pasién de Jesucristo, por
Don Micuet Mir, de la Real Academia
Espafiola. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.90
net.

By announcing a third edition of
Father Mir’s “ History of the Passion
of Jesus Christ,” the publishers show
that the work has been well received by
our Spanish-speaking brethren. Spanish
spiritual writers of greatest renown, such
as La Puente and La Palma, as well as
the principal writers in other tongues
have been drawn upon, not to produce a
mere compilation, however good it might
be, but a new book which combines the
pious meditations of the ascetic with a
wealth of detail about the Holy City, its
people and topography, which the older
writers could not have. The work is
published by permission of the Arch-
bishop-Bishop of Madrid-Alcala and
warmly praised by Cardinal Rampolla,
and it needs no further commendation.
At times one may lament the poor type
and wretched paper found in Spanish
books, but not, as far as we have seen,
in those issued by Herder. The one be-
fore us, besides excellent paper and clear
print, has upwards of a score of illus-
trations, which further enhance it.

Index to The Month, 1864-1908. Lon-
don: The Manresa Press. This index
reveals to the most casual glance the
variety and the interest of the subjects
that have been treated in The Month
during the forty-four years of its exist-
ence. It is divided into two parts; an
index of subjects and an index of au-
thors. The print is so clear that it is
almost impossible to run down its col-
umns and miss what one is looking for.
It is to be obtained from The Manresa

Reviews and Magazines

In Etudes, September 5, Pedro Descoqs
continues his analysis of the system of
Charles Maurras. Though this contains
serious lacune from the philosophical
and religious point of view and there
may be grave danger in uniting in con-
certed action with a professed atheist,
Maurras’ plan of social and national re-
generation manifests noble aspirations
and profound views. Many of his con-
clusions and theories are quite compati-
ble with Catholic dogma, and the Catho-
lic apologist might profit from his sys-
tem.

Xavier Moisant explains the Christian
idea of “Responsibility.” From the
standpoint of history, the question re-
volves around two poles, the sovereignty
of God, and the liberty of man. In the
teaching of Christ, the testimony of the
martyrs, the writings. of the Fathers, St.
Augustine especially, the sovereignty of
God is paramount. Before the tribunals
of the Inquisition, examining the rela-
tions of civil and moral responsibility, in
the condemnation of Quietism, Jansen-
ism and Liberalism, in the discussions
on Free Will and Grace between Molin-
ists and MBannesians, the liberty’ of
man becomes the central point. With
these two facts before her, the Catholic
Church has ever labored to preserve in-
tact the idea of responsibility.

Pierre Bliard tells the sad story of the
“Fall of the Constitutional Clergy’
(1793-1794). Quoting freely from the
documents of the Revolutionary tribunal,
he proves that amongst the priests who
took the civil, schismatical oath and mar-
ried, many kept a spark of the old Faith,
some were led astray by passion, ambi-
tion, weakness, while others tried to lull
their conscience by the flimsiest sophis-
tries. Albert Deplanque’s recent work
on Fénelon affords Eugene Grisell an
opportunity to throw some further light
on the “ Correspondence of Bossuet and
Fénelon.”

René Compaign sketches the educa-
tional ideals of Blessed Mother Barat, a
theme suggested by Geoffroy de Grand-
maison’s life of the newly beatified.
Mother Barat in her ideals and methods
aimed at preparing the future by the edu-
cation of the young for the glory of the
Sacred Heart and the peace of the world
From H. de Pully’s “ Religious Musings ”’
many pregnant thoughts may be taken.
“ Life surpasses matter; therefore it does
not come from it.” “In the moral code
of Mahomet we find the Arab; in that
of Christ, where is the Jew?” “The
Papacy, that ancient monarchy, that im-
pregnable Rock, gives the lie to all his-
toric laws of instability.”

Press, Roehampton, London, S.W. Price

whatever makes for a consolidation of

3s. 6d.; postage 8d.

5 G &

}
i

AMERICA

Ocroser 9, 1909. No. 26.

EDUCATION

The faculty of theology at the Catholic
University, Washington, D. C., receives
an additional professor in the person of
Rev. Dr, Daniel J. Kennedy, O.P., who
will conduct the courses in sacramental
theology. He is a very distinguished
member of the Dominican Order, and
the first member of a religious order to
be appointed to a full professorship in
the university.

The chair of Political Economy,
founded by the late Mr. Joseph Banigan
of Providence, has been filled by the
appointment of Dr. Frank O’Hara, a
graduate of the University of Berlin, and
who has had several years’ experience as
a professor in western high schools and
universities.

Rev. Dr. Nicholas Weber has been ap-
pointed instructor in history in the Un-
dergraduate Department. Dr. Weber is
a member of the Marist Society, and a
graduate of the University. He obtained
last year the degree of doctor of the-
ology after a very brilliant examination.
His printed dissertation on “The History

of Simony in the Church from the
earliest times to Charlemagne” has re-
ceived flattering recognition in the

learned reviews.

It is the intention of the University to
resume this year the public lectures that
were formerly a feature of the academic
life of the city. These lectures are meant
primarily for the benefit of the student
body. They are free, however, not only
to the large number of invited guests,
but to the general public.

Rev. Dr. John Cooper, assistant pas-
tor of St. Matthew’s Church, Washing-
ton, has been appointed instructor in
Christian Doctrine in the Undergraduate
Department. Dr. Cooper is a graduate
of the American College at Rome, and
will have charge of the advanced courses
of religious instruction for the lay stu-
dents of the University.

During the summer the library of the
University has been removed to com-
modious quarters on the first floor of
McMahon Hall. Not only has more
space been gained for the 100,000 vol-
umes, but better ventilation and light
have been secured. The library is par-
ticularly rich in works bearing on moral,
ethical, and sociological subjects. Per-
haps the finest collection of works on
several of the Oriental languages, He-
brew, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, etc., is
found in the 10,000 volumes belonging to
Professor Henry Hyvernat. The gen-
eral library of the University will be
enriched for the present by the personal
library of the new rector Very Rev. Dr.
Shahan, formerly professor of Church

History. He has placed the nine or ten
thousand volumes of his valuable collec-
tion of ecclesiastico-historical works,
carefully made during twenty years, at
the disposition of the professors and
students. The library is already very
rich in collections of learned reviews
pertaining to the different departments
of the University and regularly kept up
in connection with the special depart-
mental libraries of philosophy, pedagogy,
Latin and Greek, chemistry and physics,
etc.

The faculty of St. Joseph’s Seminary
at Dunwoodie, New York, one of the
important theological schools in the
United States, has secured three recent
graduates of the Catholic University,
Dr. John J. ‘Mitty, professor of dogma;
Dr. Francis X. Albert, professor of Scrip-
ture, and Rev. Arthur Scanlon, Ph.M.,
professor of philosophy. Many of the
theological graduates of the University
are to be found in other seminaries and
colleges of the United States. In this
way the University is gradually taking
its place as the principal training school
for Catholic professors and teachers in
the diocesan seminaries and colleges, and
also in those of the seven or eight re-
ligious orders which are located near
the University.

In an episcopal letter sent to all the
parishes of his diocese, Bishop James A.
McFaul severely attacks American col-
leges and universities for their unchris-
tian teaching, and appeals for support
for Catholic institutions of learning.

“When visiting our secular universi-
ties,” he writes, “I have been amazed at
the wealth they possess, and the gener-
osity of their friends. At the same time
I have been saddened at the thought of
how little Catholics do in comparison
with their non-Catholic brethren for the
building up and the maintenance of
higher education in this country.

“Legacies are given and donations
frequently made to non-Catholic insti-
tutions. It is seldom, however, that
one learns of any large gift to our Cath-
olic colleges, although they -are strug-
gling along, often barely able to sustain
themselves, and usually too poor to es-
tablish the various departments which
would enable them to support those
technical branches which attract so
many of our Catholic young men and
young women to secular colleges.

“We American Catholics, notwith-
standing the magnificent work accom-
plished along other lines, are wofully
wanting in two very important works:
the support of the Catholic press and
that of higher education.”

Regarding the protest made by the UI-
ster Presbyterian Committee against the
provision in the Irish Universities Act for
the teaching of Scholastic Philosophy in
the Queen’s University of Belfast, as
chronicled in America, September 18, Prof. ©
S. H. Butcher, M. P., has addressed the
following letter to the Vice-Chancellor of
the University:

“T have read with much regret the ac-
count of the opposition that is being raised
to the Lectureship in Scholastic Philosophy.
It causes me no slight surprise to learn that
I am quoted as against the new Lecture-
ship. I am in favor of it. I stated my
view in the matter in the House of Com-
mons when it came up there for discus-
sion, and to that opinion I still adhere.
I admit that such a Lectureship runs
rather near to being denominational in
character, as the holder would almost of
necessity be a Roman Catholic. On the
other hand, Scholastic Philosophy is a
special and very important chapter in the
History of Philosophy and a proper sub-
ject of academic study. To my mind, what
turns the balance in favor of the institu-
tion of the Lectureship is that it offers
tangible evidence that the new University
is intended, not only in name, but in fact,
to be open to Roman Catholic students
throughout Ulster who desire to pursue
their studies in the Faculty of Arts. This
is surely consistent with the spirit of the
Act of Parliament and with the hope so
generally expressed that the doors of the
University would be thrown open wide to
students of all denominations.”

The Centennial Celebration in St. Louis
opened last Sunday, October 3d, with a
magnificent demonstration in behalf of the
Parochial schools of the city. Art Hill, the
fine eminence in Forest Park, familiar to
World’s Fair goers as the site of the Art
Museum and of the Cascades, was thronged
and whitened over by the children and their
friends. A very pleasant program was
given, including songs by the children, the
recitation of a decade of the Rosary, and
a spirited address by Archbishop Glennon,
but by far the most impressive feature of
the celebration was the mighty crowd itself.
In numbers which puzzled calculation, the
people swarmed cer the hill, and crowded
about the Muse: .. of Art. Sixty thousand
souls had been counted on to attend, but
it seemed that half again that number were
gathered about the stand.

The Catholics of St. Louis are estimated
at something over three hundred thousand
—in round numbers, nearly half the total
population; a Catholic founded their city,
and it is named for a Catholic King, so that
it was doubly meet and gratifying that the
Catholics should so loyally and worthily
open the Centennial Celebration.

Octoser 9, 1909. No. 26.

AMERICA

707

ECCLESIASTICAL NEWS

—It is announced from Rome that
following the example of many of the
other great religious bodies, the Redemp-
torists, with the new scholastic year,
will inaugurate an International House
of Studies in Rome for the students of
that congregation.

—QOn last Monday, October 4, the
Franciscans all over the world celebrated
with special solemnity the seventh cen-
tenary of the foundation of their order.

—Father Eissler of Baden has been
elected General of the Congregation of
Pious Missionaries (Pallotini) the mem-
bers of which take special care of Italian
colonies.

—On Sept. 16, the Albertville left
Antwerp for the Congo. She carried on
board fourteen Scheutist missionaries,
six Christian brothers, four sisters of
charity, and seven Jesuit missionaries,
among them Brother Gillet, a botanist of
European reputation, who carries with
him forty cases of plants destined for cul-
tivation. It is Brother Gillet’s second
visit to the Congo. The Christian
Brothers are the pioneers of their insti-
tute in the mission.

—Bishop Maes of Covington, Ky., has
joined with the local superintendent of
public schools in the framing and passing
of an ordinance prohibiting the attend-
ance of children under sixteen years of
age at moving picture shows and the
cheap theatres.

—The Pope spent an hour recently in-
specting the machinery and plant set up
in the new offices of the Vatican Priit-
ing Press from which is sent out the
official printed documents and publica-
tions. He chatted familiarly with the
operators and praised the industry and
faithful work of the technical directors
of the work.

—On the evening of Sunday, October
10, in Carnegie Hall, the Rev. Matthew
C. Gleeson, chaplain of the U. S. Navy,
will deliver a lecture under the auspices
of the Catholic Camp Association, on his
cruise around the world with the Atlantic
Fleet.

—Among many details of the death of
Lefebre, the French aviator, the French
papers mention the circumstance that he
received the full rites of the Church.
Abbé Millet who was present gave him
absolution, and the officials of the Avia-
tion Society at once put an automobile at
his disposal with which he was able to
bring the holy oils in time to administer
the last Sacraments.

—At the féte held recently by the
Federated Catholic Societies of the Arch-
diocese of Florence at Milan, 300 societies
were represented and 3,600 athletes took
part in the games organized by the So-
ciety of Lombardian gymnasts.

—The Society of St. Vincent de Paul
at Paris numbers 4,616 members divided
into 261 Conferences. During 1908 they
visited 7,300 families, collected 454,980
francs and disbursed 443,678.

—According to the Bulletin des Oeuv-
res d’Orient the sisters and missionaries
at Adana are distributing food daily to
over 1,000 victims of the recent outrages.
In spite of all efforts 632 orphans have
died from want in the Adana district
during the past few weeks.

—At a congress of the Catholic Young
Men’s Association of Italy, held recently
at Assisi, Commander Pericoli, President
of the association, congratulated them
on the great increase of membership, es-
pecially in Umbria.

—On June 21, 1868, the late Bishop
Loughlin laid, in Brooklyn, the corner-
stone of the proposed Cathedral of the
Immaculate Conception, a great granite
structure 350 by 180 feet, designed after
one of the famous churches in Rouen.
The walls were built up to the first story
and only a small part of the west end,
St. John’s Chapel, finished, and then the
work stopped in 1878. The unfinished
structure, which covers a city block, has
since remained like the ruins of a dis-
mantled fortress. Last Sunday Bishop
Mundelein, the new auxiliary of Brook-
lyn, announced that he had accepted as
his charge this St. John’s Chapel parish
and would start at once the work needed
to meet its present requirements. This
will necessitate the expenditure of $200,-
000 for the erection on the corner of
Lafayette and Vanderbilt avenues of a
temporary church and school. When
this is ready St. John’s Chapel will be
closed for extensive repairs that will
probably be the beginning of building
operations looking to the completion of
the cathedral.

—Mer. McQuaid has resumed the
Sunday school for Catholic Chinese
which he opened some time ago in St.
James’ parish, Boston. There are
twenty-five pupils in the class. Since it
was opened fifty-six converts have been
made among the Chinese.

—The recent storm on the Southern
coast, which was particularly destruc-
tive in Louisiana, has destroyed or in-
jured a large number of Catholic
churches and institutions in the Arch-

diocese of New Orleans and wrecked

the homes and property of the parish-
ioners, especially in the rural districts.
Over sixty churches, schools and insti-
tutions were seriously damaged, and the
severest losses were sustained in the
poorest districts. The Parish ot Terre-
bonne was the greatest sufferer. What
Father Freret of Bancker said of his
church is typical of many others: “ Our
loss is about $3,000, a relatively small
amount, but in Bancker a catastrophe.”
Coming close after the destruction by
fire of St. John the Baptist’s Church in
New Orleans, one of the finest in the
South, the recent disasters were a griev-
ous trial to Archbishop Blenk. He
cancelled a reception in honor of the thir-
tieth anniversary of his religious profession
arranged by the gentlemen of New Orleans
and directed that the fund raised for that
event be given to the storm sufferers.

SCIENCE

Halley’s comet: was first sighted in the
United States of America at Yerkes Ob-
servatory by Professor S. W. Burnham,
with the 40-inch refractor, September
15 days 21 hours 39 minutes G.M.T. He
estimates its present magnitude as 15.5,
its diameter as 12 seconds. The comet
possibly has a faint nucleus or indefinite
fleck of light in it.

Father G, H. Searle, C.S.P., announces
the following results of his calculation
on Halley’s comet: “The nearest ap-
proach of the comet will be on May 19th.
On May 18th, 14 G., M. T., the comet
and the earth will be in heliocentric
conjunction in longitude, the longitude
being 236° 48’. There would be no actual
transit of the comet over the sun’s disk
according to these elements, but a slight
change in them might produce one. At
any rate it seems highly probable that we
shall on May 18 be inside the tail.

On September 6 the Swiss Society of
Natural Sciences, which is equivalent to
a national academy, assembled in Lau-
sanne, decided by unanimous vote to
publish an edition of the works of Leon-
ard Euler in their original language. The
vote was facilitated by the promise of
financial aid on the part of the Acade-
mies of Paris and St. Petersburg. The
final success of this long standing prob-
lem is due to Prof, Rudio of Ziirich.
Prof. Rudio was present at the Mathe-
matical Congress of Francfort-on-the-
Main, in 1896, when the former direc-
tor of the Georgetown University Ob-
servatory, Father Hagen, S.J., opened
this question for the first time, present-
ing to the assembly his printed “ Index

Operum Leonardi Euler.” The index

AMERICA

Ocroser 9, 1909. No. 26.

will now serve as the basis of the edi-
is to comprise at least
quarto volumes, The lan-
guage Euler was mostly Latin and
French. Some of our readers may re-
member that Father Hagen began nearly
twenty years ago, to secure this edition
Euler’s work by interesting men of
science and of wealth in the project. |
With the aid of several publishing firms |
in Boston and in Berlin he showed that |
a fund of fifty thousand dollars was}
needed for the purpose. The same esti- |
mate was lately proposed to the assem- |
bly at Lausanne. The publication
declared highly desirable at the Inter-|
national Congress of Mathematicians in |
Heidelberg in 1904, and in Rome in 1908. |
If Father Hagen did not succeed in find-
ing a response in this country, he has
the credit of having opened the problem
and of having furnished the first com-
plete Index of Euler’s works.

tion, which
twenty-live

of

of

was

The Zeppelin school for aviation was
formally opened last week at Fr edrich-
shafen, with four pupils in attendance.

|

The school was endowed by the intrepid |
Count whose airship rates as the first |
of the lighter-than-air machines.

OBITUARY

Mother Mary of the Cross, who, in
1866, founded the Australian Sisters of |
St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart, died on |
August 8, at North Sydney, New South
Wales. She established 106 houses of her |
community which now numbers 650 Sis- |
ters. They teach 117 schools with 12,409
pupils and have charge of twelve or- |
phanages and homes with 1,040 inmates. |
They are at work in every State of the!
Australian Commonwealth and New Zea- |
Mother Mary was 67 years old and |
a native of Australia. She started her'|
first community in a stable, and the chil- |
dren of the poor were made its special |
care, a rule she strictly kept. Her father,
Alexander Mackillop, was a member of a|
well-known Highland Catholic family.

land.

|

Hon. John Joseph Curran, former mem- |
ber of Parliament for Montreal Centre, |
Solicitor-General under Sir John Thomp-|
son and Sir Mackenzie Bowell, and, since |
1892, Judge of the Superior Court, died at |
his residence in Montreal on October 1. A
more extended notice of this distinguished
Catholic will appear later. Suffice it to
Say just now that his life of sixty-seven
years was a noble example of Catholic}
practice combined with kindliness and jus-
tice to all, and that his death has been
mourned as a severe loss for Canada by all
the Montreal newspapers.

| vided

| affords a practical pattern for those who

SOCIOLOGY

According to the annual report of the
Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary for
the Protection of Immigrant Girls, of
which the Rev. M. J. Henry is the direc-
tor, during the year ending June 30, 1909,
there were landed at Ellis Island, 18,-
997 Irish immigrants, 9,252 males and
9,745 females—all of whom were met on
arrival by one or both representatives
of the Mission. The number received
last year at the Home was 845—805 Irish,
21 English, 9 Scotch, 6 Welsh, 3 Ameri-
can, 1 Portuguese. Those who secured
employment through the Mission num-
bered about 220. The Mission also pro-
temporary accommodation in
boarding houses for 190 immigrants, a
reason being that only girls landing for
the first time are received at the Home.
While the total immigration to the
United States was 580,616, a number al-
most corresponding to that of the pre-
ceding year, the arrivals from Ireland
happily show a marked decrease. The
Mission makes no charge for services
at Ellis Island, for accommodation in
the Home, or for securing employment,
and receives neither city, state nor fed-
eral aid. It is supported by voluntary
contributions.

The Waldschule of Muenchengladbach |

are interested in.this class of work. At
present seven Waldschulen exist in Ger-

many. Though Charlottenburg had the
first and parent foundation, the school |
of Muenchengladbach is accorded first |
place for practicality. Its scope is in |
brief threefold: to provide a suitable |
place of recreation and recuperation for |
the sickly and infirm children of the
sity’s crowded schools—children who by
reason of home circumstances are de-
prived of the chance of a needed “ return
to nature.” Wholesome food, out-door
games and rambles in the fresh air and
sunshine, with lighter physical culture
exercises, form the staple of the day’s

program. Secondly, the Waldschule pro-
vides for children who are _benefici-
aries through membership in one of

the various Krankenkassen or “ Sickness
Purses.” A third class of the attendants
are children of the better-to-do families
living in and without the municipal lim-
its. Here a maximum tutelage tariff is
exacted. In the former instances pupils
are accepted on payment of a nominal
fee and the city adds in these cases
enough to clear the running outlay for
each child. Each morning, bright and
early, a special tram bears the children
out from the dust and smoke of the city

limits to a natural grove covering some

acres. The buildings are one-story on
the summer cottage plan. In the fore-
noon four half-hour classes are held in
the open. The topics treated are sug-
gested by the surroundings, botany,
natural history, local geography. As in
the German State School, Catholic in-
structors have the Catholic children, the
other confessions enjoying a like privi-
lege. The term continues from April to
November. At present, however, a plan
is being furthered to provide a perma-
nent home for a limited number of pu-
pils, who, otherwise beginning life con-
stitutionally handicapped, could hardly
be expected to attain to robust and use-
ful maturity. Children to the age of
fourteen of both sexes are accepted.
Surveillance while unrelaxing is pater-
nal, and the authorities report most en-
couraging results. That the work of
Gladbach finds recognition is evinced by
the fact that a special commissioner has
been sent to model on the same plan
schools for London, and that far-off en-
terprising America is not unrepresented
on the visitors’ list. John McCaffery.

ECONOMICS

Secretary of Agriculture Wilson has ex-
pressed the opinion that, if some govern-
ment board had the right to pass on pro-
posed issues of railroad securities and say
whether they represented actual property,

| it would give the farmers confidence in such

securities and they would buy them freely.

The value of the annual crop of Indian
corn in the United States is fixed at one
billion dollars, at least twice that of any
other crop. Three-fourths of this amount
are consumed on the farm. Its very gen-
eral use as food for man is warranted by its
wholesome and nutritious qualities; but in
northern Europe, the people look upon it
as fit only for cattle and fowls. The whole
plant is utilized, furnishing 150 different
products. Among these are meal, starch,
whiskey, beer, pipes and paper. The
parent type, from which the others have
been evolved, is believed to be the
familiar pop-corn.

The American Health League announces
in its September Bulletin of the Committee
of One Hundred some of the results of its
campaign of publicity. Three-quarters of a
million pieces of mail matter have been
issued; $48,000 has been expended; both
political parties have incorporated the
planks of the League in their platforms;
two Presidents have endorsed its work;
every month the articles oc) health in co-
operation with the Committee appear in
many magazines; and the enlistment of in-
surance companies represents 9,000,000 pol-
icy holders.

—

OctTosBer 9, 1909. No. 26.

AMERICA

709

PULPIT, PRESS AND PLATFORM

It is unusual to find in a secular maga-
zine so just a comment on the world
we live in as the following from the
Forum:

“It is a curious characteristic of this
modern age that we are devoting nearly
all our thought to things which do not
really matter, and that we rarely confer
serious consideration upon the phases
and features of life which are so es-
sential that it is impossible to escape
from them. Thus we are thinking a
great deal about flying machines, which
the world has managed fairly well to
live without for many centuries.

We are very fussy about getting from
New York to Chicago in fewer hours
than twenty-four in order that we may
economize that precious entity we call
our time; but we seldom bother to con-
sider our eternity. The men of the Mid-
dle Ages devoted their best thought to
religion because they found that it was
something they could not possibly es-
cape; now, for the same reason appar-
ently, we ignore it and assume the at-
titude thus phrased by Mr. Chesterton—
Everything matters except Everything.”

Archbishop O’Connell of Boston, in a
letter to the pastors of his diocese urg-
ing the people to give generously to the
support of the charitable institutions
says:

“No one, I think, but those who are
actively engaged and personally inter-
ested in the work of rescuing Catholic
children can realize the constant vigi-
lance which we must exercise to procure
simple justice from the religious point
of view for these unfortunate outcasts,
foundlings, and those whose parents
are declared legally incompetent of
caring for them. The untiring ener-
gies of people with queer ideas of sin-
cerity in the endeavor to steal our chil-
dren from the Church, its doctrines, and
its sacraments, are almost incredible.
The law in a way protects these little
ones in their religious rights and privi-
leges, but the insincere methods, the
double-dealing, the cant, and the positive
sham carried to a point of wonderful
ingenuity, by which every attempt is
made to defraud these powerless and
speechless little ones of the only thing
in life left to them, the precious inher-
itance of their faith, are simply astound-
ing and staggering.

“T am using this language advisedly
and designedly. One need only listen
to a few of the stories which anybody
connected with these bureaus, well in-
formed, practical men, can relate, to re-
alize that in this whole miserable busi-

ness the arts of deception are carried to
the very extreme. The time for sub-
mitting patiently to these iniquitous
methods has passed and I lay it upon
the conscience of every true Catholic
of this diocese to unmask this systematic
and only half concealed method of at-
tack upon the poor destitute Catholic
children.”

This warning is just as applicable to
other large communities as it is to Bos-
ton.

The Saturday Evening Post for Sep-
tember 25 contains a lucid and inter-
esting description of the powers and ac-
tivities of the Public Service Commis-
sions in New York State. The article
leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind of
the value of such commissions in safe-
guarding the interests of the public
against the selfishness and recklessness
of corporations. Mr. John S. Kennedy,
the writer, who is secretary of a Public
Service Commission, concludes his able
paper with the following paragraph:

“The only danger that can ever come
to the public or to the corporations
from the existence of the law will be if
unscrupulous or designing men should
get the majority control and use the
great power provided for self-aggran-
dizement or selfish purposes. But so
long as a high standard is maintained
the Public Service Commissions Law
will provide a forum where differences
of opinion between the public and the
corporations will find a speedy and in-
expensive solution, where the vested
rights of corporations will be protected,
and where attempts to utter false capi-
talization will find an effective check.”

Most Rev. Dr. Browne, Bishop of
Ferns, Ireland, celebrated his episcopal
jubilee September 14. Among the ad-
dresses was one from his classmates,
Archbishop Healy and Bishops O’Dwyer
and Hoare. The following are excerpts
f-om the sermon preached by Rev. M.
Phelan, S.J.:

“The history of our native land is
written in tears, but one glory lights its
gloomy pages—the union of priests and
people. When the darkest tempests
burst upon us, that union formed the
bulwark of Ireland’s faith, and behind
it patriotism found securest shelter. But
for that one barrier our national faith
would to-day be fittingly symbolized by
our national temples—ruins and monu-
ments of things that were. . . .

“Treland is now standing face to face
with a corrupt civilization; its foul
breath is upon her. A deadly freight of
foreign literature is daily discharged
upon her shores. The network of tele-
graph wires is throbbing with dangerous

thought. ‘Thick as the leaves in Val-
lombrosa’ immoral picture cards are
falling into the hands of youth to blast
the whiteness of their virtue. The scoffer
and the Socialist are now enabled to
reach to every corner of the land. Thou-
sands of hot young Irish brains are suck-
ing in the moral turpitude that oozes
from the divorce courts of London.

“The real battle of the future is be-
tween the Catholic Church and free
thought, and when the fight raged
fiercest Ireland would be discovered to
be the storm centre. Religion would not
be attacked in the abstract, but religion
as represented in the person of the
priest. Anti-clericalism was the first step
in a declension that must end in open
infidelity, and wherever the anti-clerical
agent was found, there they had the
cloven hoof.

“The sacred bonds of love that found
such glorious expression between the
priests and people in the ceremonies of
that day would have to bear the stress
of the wildest storms of the future, and
I believe that not only will Ireland hold
fast to the faith of St. Patrick, but that
God has in store for her children the
glorious destiny of being the world’s re-
generators.”

The following letter throws an inter-
esting light upon the attitude of North
and South towards Irish soldiers during
the Civil War. It appears in an his-
torical sketch entitled “Williams, C.S.A.”
in Harper’s Magazine for September. It
was written by the Secretary of State of
the Confederacy and first published in
the Richmond Times of July 16, 1896, and
republished in the Papers of the South-
ern Historical Society, Vol. XXIV:

Department of State,
Richmond, July 3, 1863.
(To Lieutenant J. L. Capston.)
Sir:

You have, in accordance with your
proposal made to this department, been
detailed by the Secretary of War for
special service under my orders. The
duty which it is proposed to entrust to
you is that of a private and confidential
agent of this government, for the purpose
of proceeding to Ireland, and there using
all legitimate means to enlighten the
population as to the true nature and
character of the contest now waged in
this continent, with the view of defeat-
ing the attempts made by the agents of
the United States to obtain in Ireland
recruits for their army. It is understood
that under the guise of assisting needy
persons to emigrate, a regular organiza-
tion has been formed of agents in Ire-
land who leave untried no methods of
deceiving the laboring population into
emigrating for the ostensible purpose of

710

AMERICA

Ocroser 9, 1909. No. 26.

seeking employment in the United States
but really for recruiting in the Federal
armies. .

Throw yourself as much as possible
into close communication with the peo-
ple where the agents of our enemies are
at work. Inform them by every means
you can devise, of the true purpose of |
those who seek to induce them to emi-
Explain to them the nature of

which carried
them the fate of their

grate.
warfare here.

un-

the is on

Picture to

happy who have already
fallen victims to the arts of the Federals. |
Relate to them the story of Meagher’s |
Brigade, its formation and its fate. Ex-|
plain to them that they wiil be called}
on to meet Irishmen in battle, and thus
to imbrue their hands in the blood of |
their own friends, and perhaps kinsmen, |
in a quarrel which does not
them, and in which all the feelings of a|
common humanity should induce them |
to refuse taking part against us. Con-|

countrymen,

concern |

arms of the Jesuit priest who adminis-
tered to him the last sacraments.” One
of his daughters is the wife of Secretary
of War Wright, and the Rev. Oliver
Semmes, S.J., of Tampa, Fla., is his
grandson,

At the recent International Medical
Congress at Budapest, Dr. John B. Mur-
phy, of Chicago, one of the leading
American surgeons, was signally hon-
ored. He is the inventor of the “ Mur-
phy Button,” an appliance in abdominal

surgery.

Archbishop O’Connell of Boston di-
vides with Bishop Mundelein of Brook-

|lyn the distinction of American member-

ship in the famous Roman Academy of
Arcadia.

On of age and _ ill-health
Bishop of San Antonio, Texas,
has applied for a coadjutor with right

account
Forest

trast the policy of the Federal and Con-| of succession,

federate states. . .

In this war such has been the hatred |
of the New England Puritans to Irish- |
men and Catholics, that in several in-
stances the chapels and places of wor-
ship of the Catholics have been
burnt or shamefully desecrated by the |
regiments of volunteers from New Eng-
land. These facts have been published |
in Northern papers; take the New York}
Freeman’s Journal, and you will see|
shocking details, not coming from Con-
federate but from the officers
of the United States themselves.

Lay all these matters fully before the
people who are now called on to join}
these ferocious persecutors in the de-
struction of this nation. .

I am, sir, respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) J. P. Benjamin,
Secretary of State.

[rish

sources,

PERSONAL

The centenary of the birth of Admiral
Semmes, the famous captain of the Ala-
bama during the Civil War, was cele-
brated throughout the South September
27. In Mobile, where Admiral Semmes
spent his later years, Bishop Allen gave
the invocation and benediction at the
public excercises. . In New Orleans
Father de la Moriniere, S.J., delivered
the oration, which the papers of that
city pronounce a _ masterpiece. De-
scended from a Catholic Maryland fam-
ily, Raphael Semmes was a practical
Catholic all his life. He sent his sons
to Spring Hill College, Alabama, and all
his children to Catholic institutions.
“His private life was as spotless as his
public life was heroic. He died in the

CORRESPONDENTS’ QUERIES

The Times was asked lately, when and
the celibacy of Roman Catholic
priests became one of the tenets of the
faith. It should have answered that it is
not a tenet of the faith. The tenets of
the faith are comprehensively and ex-
clusively the Divine Revelation. That
the state of virginity is higher than that
of matrimony, is a tenet of the faith be-
cause it is revealed by the Holy Ghost
through St. Paul, and by our Lord Him-
self. The propriety of the higher state
for those called to the ministry of the
altar is a rational conclusion that any-
one might reach. That they are bound
to it is a disciplinary law of the Latin
Church based upon this conclusion.
When did the law come into existence?

how

| In itself the question is of no importance.

The law is by its nature a good law, be-
cause it is founded on a revealed truth.
It is made by legitimate authority. It
affects only a certain class. Entrance
into that class is free. He who enters
it knows the law and accepts it deliber-
ately, therefore it is not tyrannous. It
has existed for many centuries, and has
proved most useful in so many ways,
that among Episcopalian clergymen,
whose liberty in the matter is guaran-
teed them by their Articles of Religion,
not a few maintain that it is the normal
state for the Christian ministry, and
many recommend it, at least for a time,
in order that work in poor missions and
parishes may be possible. Mr. Henry S.
Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation
takes this view in his third annual report.
This should be enough for all practical
purposes in this twentieth century. An-
tiquarian research into the origin of laws

is not characteristic of the ordinary man
or woman. Why then should there be so
exceptional interest with regard to one?

The Times says that the Provincial
Synod of the Roman Church did not be-
gin to interdict expressly the marriage
of the clergy until the sixth century. This
is* incorrect. The Spanish Council of
Elvira did so at the end of the third. A
Roman Council at the end of the fourth
required priests and deacons to live apart
from their wives. The great doctors, St.
Ambrose and St. Augustine in the fourth
century, St. Hilary in the beginning of
the fifth, assume that celibacy is the rule,
and the best authorities hold that the
obligation was generally recognized
throughout the Latin Church from the
time of St. Leo the Great in the early
fifth century. The Times adds that for
several centuries the Church of Rome
endeavored to enforce the law of celibacy
with only partial success until the time
of Gregory VII. If it means by this that
the Church endeavored to bring the
clergy in times more or less barbarous to
a loyal observance of a recognized obli-
gation, it is not far wrong. If it means
that the Church strove to impose upon
them an unknown burden, it errs very
grievously. It adds some information
not altogether exact regarding the East-
ern Church. We advise its corres-
pondent to read Father Thurston’s arti-
cle on the matter in “ The Catholic En-
cyclopedia.”

WHAT IS SAID OF AMERICA.

I admire America, and anxiously look
for each successive number. More power
to you—Right Rev. Joseph J. Fox, D.D.,
Bishop of Green Bay.

The more I see of your magnificent
paper, America, the more I am delighted
with it. I find only one fault with your
excellent publication; it is this: that whilst
there is plenty for the price of subscription,
there is not sufficient for the appetite of
your readers. Wishing you Godspeed in
your great enterprise, I remain, as ever, one
of your great admirers.—Right Rev. N. C.
Matz, D.D., Bishop of Denver, Colo.

America has added two members to its
editorial staff. We had not noted it was
in grievous need of such an increase. The
paper has taken a place all its own. No one
can fairly question its pre-eminence. It
should enjoy the practical support of the
intelligent Catholics of the United States.
It calls for 100,000 subscribers. We hope
that the response will outrun the call by
at least another 100,000—The Catholic
Transcript.